In football, there is a recipe of success that says "play toward your strenghts". Below ill present an opinion on what happened yesterday and yesterday alone. Please dont take this post out of context because i happen to believe Fitz is a very good coach...but he isnt perfect. It seemed to me that he entered yesterday with a beaten mind and didnt trust his players. I believe my opinion is well established with the following plays.
1. Kickoff
Instead of doing what we have trusted to do this whole year, fitz adjusted the ko team prior to the game and focused on target kicking. The target kick actually was well executed by our kicker into the right quadrant. However, our team was ill prepared and waved into that quadrant. Brown queiro both had lost containment as the returner made a beeline immediately for the wide open left side of the field untouched.
how to correct this....trust your team with what they have been doin all year. Or better yet put in mitchell to kick the ball out of the endzone like other teams do.
2. Punt team. Instead of being impressed with michigan film, fitz should have watched our film. Our punt coverage has been absolutely phenomenal all year with watkins long mcshepherd absolutely pounding returners. Thats how you marginalize a returner. Instead fitz said postgame that our punting accomplished its objective to take the ball out of the retruners hands. Not so fast. To limit returns, our punter pooched punts 30 yards. As the net was atrocious. This lack of trust in our excellent gunners gave michigan great field position and also gave our offense bad field position.
3. Didnt trust our defense so he entered the game with a very passive defense. No blitz no nothing. Our d doesnt overwhelm anyone playing on its heels. Result was two easy predictable drives.
correction: trust your d to make big plays...dont put them on the ropes. Let them go. To fitz credit, he adjusted and brought heat the rest of the game and the result was 3.5 sacks and 5 punts and one FG. But his lack of trust previously already cost us the game.
4. Offense.
He failed to trust his offense as well. When driving on 3rd and two....he already gave up on them by running a very lame 31 dive up the middle beautifully positioning for the fg. When he didnt go for it on 4th down, it became obvious that he gave up on the prior down.
5. Other style points. Leave thorson in at the 8 minute mark and learn. We had a tremendous opportunity to have him in passing mode without the game on the line. A td or fg would have been something to build upon for next week
6. Screw the michigan fight song. Fitz didnt want to "disrespect" the michigan fight song so he walked our team out of the tunnel like they were goin to a funeral. The michigan band was playing that fight song for 20 minutes so who cares. Bring the team on the field with emotion.
Its easy to monday qb but it seems to me that fitz intentionally had us play on our heels. We arent good enuf to play that way. We also have outstanding playmakers on defense who we can trust to make plays when we play aggressive football. There was a reason why michigan players made big plays and part of it certainly had to do with fitz not trusting his own players.
flush it and lets take the w
1. Kickoff
Instead of doing what we have trusted to do this whole year, fitz adjusted the ko team prior to the game and focused on target kicking. The target kick actually was well executed by our kicker into the right quadrant. However, our team was ill prepared and waved into that quadrant. Brown queiro both had lost containment as the returner made a beeline immediately for the wide open left side of the field untouched.
how to correct this....trust your team with what they have been doin all year. Or better yet put in mitchell to kick the ball out of the endzone like other teams do.
2. Punt team. Instead of being impressed with michigan film, fitz should have watched our film. Our punt coverage has been absolutely phenomenal all year with watkins long mcshepherd absolutely pounding returners. Thats how you marginalize a returner. Instead fitz said postgame that our punting accomplished its objective to take the ball out of the retruners hands. Not so fast. To limit returns, our punter pooched punts 30 yards. As the net was atrocious. This lack of trust in our excellent gunners gave michigan great field position and also gave our offense bad field position.
3. Didnt trust our defense so he entered the game with a very passive defense. No blitz no nothing. Our d doesnt overwhelm anyone playing on its heels. Result was two easy predictable drives.
correction: trust your d to make big plays...dont put them on the ropes. Let them go. To fitz credit, he adjusted and brought heat the rest of the game and the result was 3.5 sacks and 5 punts and one FG. But his lack of trust previously already cost us the game.
4. Offense.
He failed to trust his offense as well. When driving on 3rd and two....he already gave up on them by running a very lame 31 dive up the middle beautifully positioning for the fg. When he didnt go for it on 4th down, it became obvious that he gave up on the prior down.
5. Other style points. Leave thorson in at the 8 minute mark and learn. We had a tremendous opportunity to have him in passing mode without the game on the line. A td or fg would have been something to build upon for next week
6. Screw the michigan fight song. Fitz didnt want to "disrespect" the michigan fight song so he walked our team out of the tunnel like they were goin to a funeral. The michigan band was playing that fight song for 20 minutes so who cares. Bring the team on the field with emotion.
Its easy to monday qb but it seems to me that fitz intentionally had us play on our heels. We arent good enuf to play that way. We also have outstanding playmakers on defense who we can trust to make plays when we play aggressive football. There was a reason why michigan players made big plays and part of it certainly had to do with fitz not trusting his own players.
flush it and lets take the w
