Mattress Talk Comment Count

Brian

10/21/2017 – Michigan 13, Penn State 42 – 5-2, 2-2 Big Ten

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I'm still trying to figure out how this is a wicked burn [Patrick Barron]

Got a new mattress. Wife had been saying we should get one, and then I read this article about the crazy Online Mattress War between dudes who had gotten millions of dollars in affiliate sales as mattress reviewers and a leading mattress company that sued them. The company was kind of right that the mattress guys were not fully on the up and up, but neither was the company. The twist ending: company just bought the site and magically their problems were over, man.

Everyone wins, except the average Joe just looking for an honest mattress review. Insofar as that is possible. Which it's not for an idiosyncratic product that is supposed to hold up for years and years.

This article still convinced me that I should just buy a mattress online, because any industry that has people in that level of desperate hand-to-hand combat is a place where The Online is legitimately disruptive. Also I went into an Art Van once and felt like I needed a shower after I left. I bought one office chair. Guy said I was making an amazing choice buying this office chair. I had an incredible eye for office chairs. Nobody in the world could have picked out an office chair finer than the one I had just acquired, and at such a price. And so forth and so on.

So: I am sold that mattresses are vastly overpriced and open to disruption. Also I am the kind of person who would rather roll the dice on Amazon reviews than talk to someone who works on commission. So I went with the company at the beginning of the article that purveyed a mattress the vaguely shady review guy returned. They were not mentioned again and thus seemed to be more on the up and up than everyone else. I dislike angle shooters.

Here is an internet mattress. It comes in a white box that seems far too small for a mattress. After you hack through an Amazon's worth of plastic coverings to unroll it there is a final layer of protective covering. Pierce that with the steak knife you've commandeered and the mattress will take in a great gulp of air, like a drowning man who suddenly finds himself at the surface. Then you have a mattress.

It's springy. Good? I don't know? I slept on it. It was fine.

It is odd somehow, but that's probably not its fault. It's probably always odd to get a new mattress. It's doubly so for us since the monstrosity we are replacing is an old hand-me-down "pillow top" that's like a foot taller than this thing. The hand-me-down is the 1955 Buick of mattresses. It could double as a boat or siege weapon. You couldn't put it in a trebuchet unless you wanted to flatten something three feet away, but it would do quite well as a battering ram. Nice and roomy underneath. The padding above would mute the impacts of various rocks, arrows, and other sundry implements of murder being flung at your head. The tag you're not supposed to take off swears that flammability is not an issue. And when you get that thing going, momentum is going to take you right through that door. Have fun storming the castle!

Anyway, the placement of the reading lights in our bedroom now makes way more sense.

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The child—who goes by Denard Robinson Cook on the internet because I want his Google results to be his fault, not mine—lost his mind at this whole procedure. One of the great challenges of deploying the internet mattress was getting the little goober off the box spring long enough to simultaneously have a bed and an un-suffocated child.

He bangs the box spring and finds its texture pleasing. "BANG," he says, sort of. Getting the plastic off the mattress is a longer than expected, so he runs off to look at the old mattress, which is not in the spot it's been literally his whole life. "OH WOW," he says, distinctly and repeatedly. When the mattress arrived he pointed at the box and exclaimed "OH WOW" for two solid minutes, at varying levels of intensity. The intensity varied from much to lots.

Perhaps he has been raised to find beds and bedding to be a delight. Later I would discover that when my wife makes the bed there has evolved a certain strange ritual. There are four pillows, and after each is sheathed in its cover the wife will promise the child a "boof," which consists of whacking him surprisingly hard in the face with the pillow and throwing it on the bed. The child falls to the ground, cackling merriment, and gets up demanding to be boofed again.

After the pillows are all on the bed the child is thrown onto it, whereupon he flings himself onto every nook and cranny mutter-yelling "boof." Should an adult have the temerity to join the child on the bed, he or she will be shooed away. The child will cry "ah-weigh" until the offense is repaired, and then resume boofing itself.

This was the only part of the mattress procedure with an unpleasant whiff. It is now clear that the child enjoys throwing himself headlong at things, and having things hurled headlong at himself. He thus might want to play football, which is a sport of no account whatsoever that all thinking people rightly condemn.

AWARDS

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Higdon, not Long above[Eric Upchurch]

Known Friends And Trusted Agents Of The Week

-2535ac8789d1b499[1]you're the man now, dog

#1 David Long? I guess? Long intercepted a pass on PSU's third drive, forestalling the beat down until the second half. He was considerably assisted in this endeavor by a Penn State miscommunication, but the other choices here are guys with under 50 yards of offense or other members of a defense that didn't do great. On a day when Michigan got bombed, just one tackle for Long is probably a good thing.

#2 Karan Higdon? Averaged three yards a carry and this felt sort of noble in the circumstances, with half his carries buried at the line by a defense with no respect for the pass and another fair chunk actually decent.

#3 Khaleke Hudson? I guess? TFL, PBU, and a QB hurry, whatever that means in the box score. Notably did not get torched by anyone unless my memory has failed me, which, thanks, memory. Doin' me a solid.

Honorable mention:

KFaTAotW Standings.

8: Devin Bush (#1 Florida, T2 Cincinnati, T2 Air Force, #1 Purdue)
5: Chase Winovich(#1 Air Force, #2a Purdue), Mo Hurst (#1 MSU, #2(T), Indiana), Karan Higdon (#1 Indiana, #2 PSU)
4: David Long (T3 Indiana, #1 PSU)
3: Mason Cole (#1, Cincinnati), Ty Isaac (#2, Florida, #3 Cincinnati), Lavert Hill(#2 MSU, T3 Indiana))
2: Quinn Nordin (#3 Florida, #3 Air Force), John O'Korn (#2 Purdue), Rashan Gary(T2 Indiana), Khaleke Hudson (T2 Cincinnati, #3 PSU).
1: Tyree Kinnel (T2 Cincinnati), Mike McCray(T2 Air Force), Sean McKeon(T3 Purdue), Zach Gentry (T3 Purdue), Brad Robbins(#3 MSU), Brandon Watson (T3 Indiana).

Who's Got It Better Than Us Of The Week

Michigan punches in a touchdown from the six by loading up in a three-TE set and manballing it in with power. This briefly saw Michigan come within a point and was the last event in the game that could be read as hopeful.

Honorable mention: David Long's INT; other touchdown; several plays on which PSU did not score a touchdown.

imageMARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Quinn Nordin misses an extra point, which made it clear that it was about to be that kind of night.

Honorable mention: Most of the rest of the game. Saquon Barkley's opening touchdown rather stands out amongst the writhing mass of events. About one minute in to the game everyone was like "okay this is a huge loss," and they were eventually correct. Would rather that did not happen.

[After the JUMP: mattress SEO mattress links mattress reviews mattress coupons mattress mattress]

OFFENSE

Another year, another abomination. The story of Michigan football over the past decade in a sentence: their offensive line sucks. I was bracing for suck in this game and the suck outpaced my ability to brace: seven sacks and 2.5 YPC, and while that includes those sacks that feels close to fair since John O'Korn scrambled for about as many yards as he lost.

Any assertion that a position group on offense can be responded to with "yeah but what about those other guys," and yes, the OL problems are exacerbated by O'Korn's inability to read a defense and the wide receivers being (largely) freshmen. The suck reinforces itself. But the original sin on offense is an OL that starts a turnstile at right tackle no matter who's in the game.

I can't say I've reviewed what happened on the ground; there it might have been something more like the past two weeks where the blocking is mostly okay but a combination of one guy making a big error and a total lack of respect for Michigan's passing game nerf a bunch of plays near the line of scrimmage. As hopes go that's about as faint as it gets.

It's time. John O'Korn looked significantly improved from his last two outings and was still under six yards an attempt despite a defense that largely dared him to throw. He even had some help from his receivers, for a change, and nyet. A fair number of those sacks were on O'Korn sitting the pocket for four or five seconds without finding anyone—one particularly memorable incident saw O'Korn wait for a bunch of deep routes to break before throwing, with predictable results.

Michigan should look at Brandon Peters. This probably won't help, but neither is it likely to hurt much.

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help from the wide receivers [Barron]

Only fair. This site has bagged on Kekoa Crawford's season quite a bit so we should point out that his diving, over-the-shoulder completion to set up one of Michigan's touchdowns was very nice.

Game seven. Nico Collins burned his redshirt irrevocably by playing on a wide receiver screen to DPJ. If you're going to burn a redshirt it should at least be for a route, right? At least he looked burly.

Other stuff? I feel this section should be longer but what is there to say, really? Michigan doesn't have a passing game and is caught between two different approaches on the ground. They're bad.

DEFENSE

The silver lining! Joe Moorhead is 100% getting a head coach job thanks to that game. His worst case scenario is landing at UCF after someone hires Frost, right? He has to be the Hot Coordinator Du Jour along with Brent Venables. That's the ticket.

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nevermind [Barron]

Another silver lining! Instead of lingering on as a haunting what-if, that near pick-six by Hudson is instantly forgotten.

Eviscerated. I don't know if Penn State had been playing rope-a-dope for a month or what, but... yikes, man. The Saquon Barkley go route against Mike McCray was the grim capper on an RPS disaster that has to be Don Brown's worst outing since early days at Boston College. Michigan got rocked in many ways; tactics were foremost among the ways.

Moorhead clearly thought that inverted veer (or "power read" as it's often referred to these days) was an excellent way to attack Michigan's defense but didn't want the default runner to be his quarterback, thus the direct snap tweak. That paid off immediately as Michigan totally vacated the backside of the play on a long touchdown that came so quickly ABC didn't even cut to commercial afterwards.

After that faded somewhat Penn State went back to bombing it downfield, finding Michigan's safeties to be largely helpless. I'm not sure how much of that was on them. One deep corner route against Metellus was inch-perfect to the point where Charles Woodson himself couldn't have done anything about it; another was Penn State remembering that Mike Gesicki is seven feet tall and other people are not. Tyree Kinnel could have done better on the first one but still had his face in his guy's chest, providing a tiny window. Sometimes you just get got if you're a defense, and sometimes this happens about sixty consecutive times.

How much of that is Michigan's plan being bad and how much is running into a buzzsaw I'm not sure. Some of both, surely. Opposition defenses facing Penn State have made them drive the field, save for the occasional Barkley outburst, by playing zones with a lot of guys deep and making it easier underneath. This has sort of worked. Michigan refused to back off and got ripped.

Okay that sucks, but... if they do back off and make Penn State be the boring Barkley dumpoff factory they've been so far this year, what does that look like? Still a loss, because Michigan had under 300 yards of offense and scored 13 points. Playing balls to the wall was hypothetically more likely to result in turnovers that could swing the game? I don't know. Asking Don Brown to back off is like asking Denard Robinson to run a pro-style offense. I do know that.

Survey says. Yes, PSU was playing rope-a-dope for the past month. Andy Staples:

That Wildcat formation was the most obvious, but the Nittany Lions unveiled several new formations and motions Saturday just for Michigan. They had practiced all of these earlier, but they didn’t want them on video, so they avoided using them in games. This included starting with an empty backfield and staying empty through the snap of the ball. (Previously, someone had motioned into the backfield from an empty set, or someone had motioned out of the backfield to create an empty set.) Barkley’s juggling 42-yard touchdown catch came out of one of these formations.

It also included the occasional game of skill player monte, using pre-snap motion to disguise Barkley’s location at the snap for as long as possible. The less time the Wolverines had to adjust after determining where Barkley would start each play, the better for Penn State. But while the Nittany Lions had saved some scheme specifically for Michigan, the Wolverines had opted to stick mostly with what they’d already shown Penn State on film. “They stayed true to themselves,” Barkley said. “They changed a little bit of stuff, but they played us how they played a lot of other teams.”

PSU is coming off a bye week, and prior to that they'd had blowouts over Indiana and Northwestern. Michigan has been in dogfights the past two weeks in which they had to bring more stuff out of the shadows, notably that counter run that got them a free touchdown against the Hoosiers. PSU spent the fourth quarter of their game against Indiana doing basic stuff with their backups. That's a luxury you get when you have an offense that can put games away.

On that long touchdown. Michigan's in their 4-2-5 package; they're running a 3-3-5 with Winovich in the Furbush role. But the main issue with the play is Gary getting lost way upfield:

That cutback lane is Gary and Winovich getting split, and it's mostly Gary treating this like it's third and 20, not second and four. With Gesicki in a route-type substance Hudson's gone and once the first level is breached you're asking a safety to find a cutback and do anything with Barkley in the open field.

The actual point of attack is jammed, and was pretty consistently jammed when PSU ran this. But give Barkley any window and you're screwed.

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poor damn Mike McCray [Upchurch]

Solve your problems with anything other than Mike McCray on Saquon Barkley. Michigan mostly got away with putting their linebackers on running backs lined up outside after the Dalvin Cook event last year, but trying to get away with that crap when the opposition's running back is both a Heisman candidate and the team's leading receiver was always suicidal. Run a zone against empty. It's fine. Go ahead.

Wiping the LB level. PSU hit Michigan with Trace McSorley at the perfect moments, letting Barkley fakes draw the vast majority of the defense while McSorley got to pick through the remnants of the DL en route to seven yards a carry.

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this didn't work for PSU [Upchurch]

Thunderdome did not materialize. The anticipated Bush/Barkley matchup didn't really happen, with only two memorable incidents. Barkley shook Bush to turn a modest gain into about nine; a bit later Bush shut down what looked like another chunk run by demonstrating what "sideline to sideline range" means. Both guys are good at football.

SPECIAL TEAMS

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a moment of respite [Barron]

Uh, I guess there were some. Ambry Thomas had a nice kick return. Michigan buried Barkley at the 13 on one returnable kickoff, though that might have been an attempt to inflate Penn State's stats.

Oh: the punting. Blake Gillikin's punting was not a decisive advantage because he barely did it, but if the game had descended into a slog it probably would have been. He averaged 50 yards on his two kicks; Brad Robbins was at just 39, and he managed to give up 20 yards on returns despite that. He's been pretty meh since coming in for Will Hart.

MISCELLANEOUS

Eat at Arby's. Eat at Arby's.

Advice for message-boarders. The best way to get yourself banned is to start a dumb thread in the aftermath of a bad loss. That's just asking for a mod to look at your posting history and decide you're a jerk. RIP several people Saturday.

HERE

Best and Worst:

The only way Michigan was going to win this game was if it got into a rock fight, a boring-ass game from a bygone era where the space between the 30s was a muddy battleground and every run or pass looked like an NFL Blitz tackle.

But PSU was too good, too prepared to let Michigan ugly it up, and then it became an exercise in PSU's talented, experienced playmakers on offense matching up against Michigan's talented but inexperienced/ill-positioned defenders, and we all saw how that played out.

Michigan had it's moments, especially after picking off McSorley, driving down the field to score a TD. They nearly got another on the ensuing PSU possession, and McSorley again threw a bad pass, this time a screen directly into the arms of Hudson in the end zone, but who dropped it. And Michigan's second scoring drive was much like their first; a grinding affair featuring a nice mix of straight-ahead runs, a little O'Korn scrambling, and some nice pitch-and-catches. There were some subtle shifts on the line, a nice mix of zone and power, and basically the type of offense you hoped to see.

But as Ace noted in his recap, it did feel a bit smoke-and-mirrors. Michigan still hadn't figured out how to exploit the mismatches they had (mostly along the defensive line) or compensate for PSU's, chief amongst them Saquon Barkley on the move. I'll get into it later, but this was Dalvin Cook and FSU all over again, with McCray consistently losing in foot races with Barkley he could never expect to win, and PSU rightly using McSorley as a counter to Michigan's slanting by having him run through some gaping holes left by the flowing front 7. Sometimes you just get got, and when you have upperclassmen across your offense and probably the most complete back in the country (it's either Barkley or Bryce Love), it can get ugly.

The meta-state of our open threads:

ELSEWHERE

Thinking about trying this pastrami recipe out. A few weeks ago I thought about, like, curing my own meats, but then the article I was reading veered into a discussion about which molds are good and which molds are very, very bad and I decided that I would definitely give my entire family food poisoning if I tried that.

Comments

TrueBlue2003

October 23rd, 2017 at 3:42 PM ^

best hope is to scrap this offensive system/staff and bring in a star OC (let's hope Harbaugh uses the same method as he did with Brown).  It'll have to be more modern, Frey will likely be a good fit with the new OC to take over the OL. Send Pep and Drevno packing and probably should send Jay out on his own.

The reason our offensive line has been garbage for so many years is clearly not a talent issue, it's that we run an offense that allows them no margin for error and your odds of getting 5+ college kids to not screw up for 10-12 plays in a row is relatively low compared to offenses that allow more margin for error and produce big plays more often.

Brian Griese

October 23rd, 2017 at 2:00 PM ^

What on earth are you talking about? How did my post give off the impression they should quit playing because they weren’t going to win every game? I responded to a poster that thinks 2019 is “the year”, I respectfully don’t think it is. You’re welcome to join in that conversation if you like.

BTW, never got a participation trophy either.

bronxblue

October 23rd, 2017 at 3:16 PM ^

Sure, and I could also argue that the team goes 10-2/11-1 pretty easily.  PSU will look noticeably different (honestly, a lot like Michigan this year offensively), OSU will be breaking in a new QB for the first time in what feels like a decade, MSU is still MSU and I'm not remotely sold that they have the depth and talent to keep winning these 1-score games, ND is 4-8 last year and is winning games by blitzing teams on the ground; I have honestly no idea how they'll look next year and if this is a sustainable shift or one out of necessity and they'll regress next season.  Per S&P, the top two times Wisconsin has played this year are FAU (32nd) and Purdue (48th), and the best team on their schedule before going to the B1G conference game will be #27 Michigan, at home.  We have no idea how good they are, and how that will translate to next year on the road.

Every year is going to be tough in this conference.  Sure you can get a couple home games against rivals, but OSU had a playoff team last year and needed a wacky OT game to beat Michigan at home.  They get PSU this week and could easily be run off the field.  Getting worked up over 2018 either way seems foolish considering the chasm of things that can and will occur in the interim.

TrueBlue2003

October 23rd, 2017 at 5:02 PM ^

We went 10-2 last year, and that was the most talented Michigan team probably ever against one of the easiest schedules you can have playing 9 conference games.

Yes, some of these teams will get worse, PSU chief among them.  It's by no means a sure loss, but it's a coin flip at best, worse probably if they keep Moorhead.  Because while they'll lose some players like we did, their scheme and offensive coaching is far superior to ours.  Remember they have the number 1 RB waiting to replace Barkley, they have a QB with experience, they're going to be good again.

MSU is still MSU?  Is that a bad thing? If they're the MSU that has beaten us 8 of 10 times, that's not a good thing.  They'll have pretty much everyone back.  If you think we're going to be better, they're probably going to take as large or larger step forward.

OSU breaking in a new QB is meaningless.  Last time they did that they turned the guy into a national champ and NFL draft pick in three games.  They run an offense that makes it easy on QBs.  They'll be completely fine and one the road, that is a beast of a game.

Add to that an away game against ND (tough regardless of who they lose this year), and crossovers against three teams usually at the top of the East: Wisconsin, NW and Nebraska and next season is about the most difficult possible schedule - given we refuse to play two good non-conf opponents.

8 wins will again be the expectation (per the smart money) like it was this year.  We could win 10, but that'd be an event one standard devation away from expectation, eleven wins is probably two SDs away.

bronxblue

October 23rd, 2017 at 5:32 PM ^

I disagree that was one of the most talented Michigan teams ever; it had a mediocre offensive line and there have been defenses in the same general vicinity as them before.  It was an elite defense and a good offense that had some bad luck; there have been teams like that before.

I'm not sure Sanders is the same player as Barkley; he's a very good runner, but Barkley does so much despite his offensive line it's hard to imagine Sanders just steps in for a Heisman trophy candidate seemlessly.

MSU has a big crater in their recruiting stemming from the off-season issues this past season.  Guys like Frey and Allen are seniors, and my guess is LJ Scott seriously considers going pro as well.  They still don't have much of an offensive line, and I'm not remotely sold that their defense is all that good because the one good offense they faced (ND) ran all over them.  They are a good team, but they're also 4-0 in games decided by a TD or less.  That was similar to their 2015 schedule; 2016 rolls around and they go from winning those close games to losing them and they go 3-9.  Say what you will about Michigan, but other than the IU game their wins have all been reasonably comfortable.

That 3-game stretch gets immensely overhyped from a QB perspective.  OSU won because they had an amazing defense and an NFL MVP-level RB.  They'll probably be fine at QB, but crazier things can happen beyond "the new QB is worse than the last one."  That is always going to be a tough game; I'm fine saying that's probably a loss.

Nebraska will probably be on a new coach; the fact anyone considers them possibly a top West team shows the weakness of that conference.  Same with NW.  Wisconsin should be good, but again, we haven't seen them play anyone better than Purdue all year.  And hell, they struggled to pull away from FAU.  No idea how they'll look in a year, but my guess is not "juggernaut".

So again, I'm not saying 10-2 is a given, but next year's team should be better than the current one given how few players they are losing (though Hurst will be felt) and how much is coming back.  Pulling out between 1 and 2 more wins isn't remotely crazy, given the unknowns all around.

blue90

October 23rd, 2017 at 5:14 PM ^

Harbaugh does not win important games and we have not been the "Michigan" we all know over the past 15 years.  It will get better and I still think Harbaugh will make it better but it looks like it will take four or five instead of three.  Franklin won the Big Ten after three years and Kelly took ND to the national championship in year three.  To be fair, our coach is paid 9 mill a year, he should at least win a few importnat games and he hasn't...maybe one or two if you count his first bowl game and wisky last year.  We can expect better.

Night_King

October 23rd, 2017 at 12:08 PM ^

Has anyone done a detailed study on Chris Evans carries this year? He seemingly gets hit in the backfield well over half of the time. Has he just been unlucky with poor blocking on those plays or has the play calling with him been a larger factor? I'm surprised we don't throw him the ball in space. 

In reply to by SpilledMilk

lilpenny1316

October 23rd, 2017 at 12:55 PM ^

...that was talked about so much this summer?  I expected to see some 3-4 WR sets against Florida, and it never seemed to materialize.  I'm not a coach, but ever since I started following CFB teams outside of Michigan (late 80s), the way for undermanned teams to stay with high powered offenses was to either bust out the triple option, or go for a spread, quick passing offense.  

I thought Evans would've been perfect for that spread attack.  Maybe they were waiting to use it against MSU or PSU and the Speight injury nixed that.

I Like Burgers

October 23rd, 2017 at 12:42 PM ^

To me, he's looked slow and indecisive.  The OL has sucked for everyone, so I don't think its a bad luck situtation.  As Brian likes to say, RB is a make plays position, and he's just not making any plays.  I don't think putting him out in space is going to change a whole lot either. (Unless he's the one guy on the team that can actually catch the ball when they are open in space.)

Blue_In_Texas

October 23rd, 2017 at 12:10 PM ^

Penn State knowingly covered up child rape for decades. Their head coach, many in their administration, and many others in the football program knew. People don't forget. 

BuckeyeChuck

October 23rd, 2017 at 12:18 PM ^

I was flummoxed Michigan put McCray on Barkley, something Brian warned against last week. Some suggested Bush shadow Barkley, but you don't want that either, you'd rather have Bush crashing his way through the line of scrimmage disrupting the offensive backfield. Why not have somebody like Hudson shadow Barkley?

I'm not a guy who knows all the schematics. Can someone who does know the schematics of Michigan's defense explain to me what Hudson's role is in the secondary and why he couldn't be the guy to shadow Barkley?

I'm thinking keep McCray in the running game (his strength) and Bush in the blitzing game (his strength) and shadow Barkley with somebody like Hudson or one of the safeties. Even I know not to put McCray on Barkley, how does Don Brown not see that?

charblue.

October 23rd, 2017 at 1:08 PM ^

to counter spread formations and rpo's when you know the opposition is trying to isolate your slowest defender on their best pass catcher, and he's the nation's best running back. Suicide is painless until it requires certain changes, which, in this game were not forthcoming.

I mean if you are willing to adjust at safety in the slot on a speedy and athletic receiver beating your free safety time and again, surely you want to put a faster guy on Barkley than McCray or protect him in quarters zone coverage.

As soon as Kinnell lost his helmet and had to come out, PSU went empty with McCray on Barkley. All those formations were designed to check pre-snap matchups. On the sideline deep ball to Barkley for the juggling TD, Michigan was playing with essentially single high safety but too far removed to help on the play.

TrueBlue2003

October 23rd, 2017 at 5:12 PM ^

Gisicki on a lot of routes it looked like.  He is probably the most capable of that (Kinnel gives up like a foot and we saw what happened to him when he defended Gisicki).

If we wanted to keep McCray in for the run the game and keep Bush as a blitzer, you could maybe go wtih Metellus on Barkley.  Leaves your CBs on an island but I think that's something you have to do in this one.

As Brian said, the solution probably had to be: go zone.

mgoblue98

October 24th, 2017 at 1:09 AM ^

Michigan gets to the QB before McCray gets beat, but not so much toward the end of last year and the beginning of this year.  In the Wisconsin game last year, Michigan switched just before a play (I think) to get McCray out of coverage.  I would think Brown sees it on film and in the game, but I don't know why they don't switch the coverage assignments.

UMQuadz05

October 23rd, 2017 at 12:16 PM ^

Much will be said about 1) Michigan's problems in this game and also 2) Penn State's refusal to own up to their past, and rightly so.  However, I'd just like to say that PSU was a fucking buzzsaw in this game.

They are the Braylon/Hart offense, BUT with a faster, stronger (!!) version of Hart, and also coached with a "Harbaugh against Rutgers"-level of genius and cruelty. 

His Dudeness

October 23rd, 2017 at 12:18 PM ^

I started listening to Paradise Lost on youtube so there's that.

Also what's the deal with all the commercials with doorbell sounds around halloween? Anybody else have a dog or three? Urge to kill; rising.

SDCran

October 23rd, 2017 at 2:19 PM ^

I do. My dog has become immune to many commercial doorbells, but there is a new commercial out that gets him every time.



OTOH, he is truly learning the command ‘television’. He stops and looks at me, the front door, and the TV before continuing on to the front door.

Jeter23

October 23rd, 2017 at 12:19 PM ^

You'd think we would've shown a little more fight in this one in the second half. Either the halftime adjustments Harbaugh made did not work or he just let the team check their instagrams the entire time. I can't be the only one thinking about bringing in Gruden if he's serious about returning to college football. He's been in talks with Tennessee to take over for Butch Jones once that axe finally falls, and I can't think of a better fit for a team desperate for some energy. Why wait until this team inevitably fails to win 8 games this season to get the ball rolling? Manuel needs to at least make a call. 

ijohnb

October 23rd, 2017 at 12:24 PM ^

the team lacked fight.  They did not show enough grit.  No determination on display.  Did not see any heart.  Did not come to play.  Just lacked energy.   Really no focus.

Gruden or Dungy, for sure man.

Jeter23

October 23rd, 2017 at 12:33 PM ^

Don't think Dungy would be a good fit. He is very open with his conservative views on gay rights and abortion, can't imagine they'd be very popular in Ann Arbor. Gruden is a guy who sticks to sports.

Yo_Blue

October 23rd, 2017 at 1:53 PM ^

There's a reason for that - they are called Trolls.  I made the mistake of listening to 97.1 yesterday and couldn't believe the hate and level of intelligence I heard.  The host and most of the callers wanted to blow up the program and start over because "Harbaugh is a fraud".  I truly lost brain cells listening to that drivel.

JFW

October 23rd, 2017 at 2:11 PM ^

is laughably bad. I quit most of sports radio back prior to the wings run. I was still in college and one of the announcers went from completely ripping one Wing with purple faced, spittle producing rage to kissing his arse the next day because the guy was on the phone with him. 

I don't like blowhards, and alot of people call in as trolls and start saying stuff that's just football ignorant. I laugh and chuckle every time I hear the Hoke analogy in the same way as when I hear someone tell me we faked the moon landings.