My non-critical analysis of the Michigan game after having watched less than half of it.

[WaveJumper]

Pretty simple to see where the train went off the rails. Michigan's OL and DL were simply bigger, stronger, faster and hungrier for Wildcat meat. They pushed NU all over the field on almost every down. NU, regardless what offensive play was called, or what defensive scheme was called was quite simply, continuously, over-matched. We didn't have the horses to compete. Don't blame the players. I couldn't find any instances where I thought they gave up - they just couldn't compete. This actually does fall on the coaching staff. They (all of them) need to recruit better and develop better because the rest of the league is not standing still - even Illinois. If that doesn't happen, you can expect more seasons like this and 2019.

This is not a complicated game. Bigger, stronger, faster will always win more than they lose.

 

[wildcatpn]

Pretty simple to see where the train went off the rails. Michigan's OL and DL were simply bigger, stronger, faster and hungrier for Wildcat meat. They pushed NU all over the field on almost every down. NU, regardless what offensive play was called, or what defensive scheme was called was quite simply, continuously, over-matched. We didn't have the horses to compete. Don't blame the players. I couldn't find any instances where I thought they gave up - they just couldn't compete. This actually does fall on the coaching staff. They (all of them) need to recruit better and develop better because the rest of the league is not standing still - even Illinois. If that doesn't happen, you can expect more seasons like this and 2019.

This is not a complicated game. Bigger, stronger, faster will always win more than they lose.

They pushed NU all over the field on almost every down? What a ridiculous statement. The Michigan offense gained 3 or less yards on about half of their rushing plays.

 

[gocatsgo2003]

They pushed NU all over the field on almost every down? What a ridiculous statement. The Michigan offense gained 3 or less yards on about half of their rushing plays.

That’s “football.”

 

[hdhntr1]

Pretty simple to see where the train went off the rails. Michigan's OL and DL were simply bigger, stronger, faster and hungrier for Wildcat meat. They pushed NU all over the field on almost every down. NU, regardless what offensive play was called, or what defensive scheme was called was quite simply, continuously, over-matched. We didn't have the horses to compete. Don't blame the players. I couldn't find any instances where I thought they gave up - they just couldn't compete. This actually does fall on the coaching staff. They (all of them) need to recruit better and develop better because the rest of the league is not standing still - even Illinois. If that doesn't happen, you can expect more seasons like this and 2019.

This is not a complicated game. Bigger, stronger, faster will always win more than they lose.

We tend to be a developmental program and that means we do better when we have a lot of upper classment that have been playing together and don't make mistakes. Last year we had that. But we lost a lot after the season and the new guys just not up to speed. That is not saying that Mich is not more talented because the certainly are. We tend to lose about 8 or 9 of ten recruiting battles to them. But this year is also about being inexperienced at a lot of positions and we can not afford that against a team like them.

 

[WaveJumper]

They pushed NU all over the field on almost every down? What a ridiculous statement. The Michigan offense gained 3 or less yards on about half of their rushing plays.

Perhaps you just watched the first half. The game was close at that point but NU still didn't look like they matched up well on the OL and DL. And in the second half, that mismatch was very apparent.

Let's take a look at the rushing stats. Michigan had 294 yards on 54 carries for a 5.44 yard per carry average. Even removing Michigan's 2 longest runs (24 and 23 yards), they still averaged 4.75 yards per carry. Pretty good average wouldn't you say?

Now NU had 100 yards on 23 carries, but 75 of those 100 yards were from Evan Hull's 75 yard TD run. That leaves 25 yards on 22 carries for a 1.13 yard per carry average. This is very poor production, and if you bothered to watch the video without your purple tinted glasses, you might have noticed the mismatch. After Michigan retired Haskins and Corum with Edwards in junk-time they probably did average less than 3 yards per carry, but then the score was 33-7. Game was well over at that time. Also, Michigan rotated 24 players on defense to NU's 19. An indicator of relative depth. They also had the ball for nearly 40 minutes. The game wasn't close and the OL and DL were the big difference makers.

It was very clear to me that NU was over-matched on both the OL and DL. I'm pretty old, but my eyes are not failing me yet.

 

[EvanstonCat]

We tend to be a developmental program and that means we do better when we have a lot of upper classment that have been playing together and don't make mistakes. Last year we had that. But we lost a lot after the season and the new guys just not up to speed. That is not saying that Mich is not more talented because the certainly are. We tend to lose about 8 or 9 of ten recruiting battles to them. But this year is also about being inexperienced at a lot of positions and we can not afford that against a team like them.

Myth. We had plenty of upperclassmen on the field, and some of our best performers are new to the program (e.g. Clair, Robinson). 8 players on defense had starting experience from last year, and we also returned Samdup Miller who had 3 years starting, and added Meiser and Pooler who were starters in their previous programs and hence, not inexperienced.

Our D was solid, now that we are done with the JON joke and bullshit of a defense. Agree with WaveJumper that Michigan was just better than we were, but we still held them to 10 points in the 1st half (not bad) and I think they just tired and got beat up in the 2nd half because the O kept handing it back. Its our O that's a bigger problem, specifically our OL. Anderson is an improvement on Cushing, but something is wrong that 3 years in, he still doesn't have more of his players ready to go. Bajakian is an improvement on McCall, but we really need Kevin Wilson or someone else who has some imagination to get creative and be able to beat offenses with some scheme and play calling. We are way too vanilla and I get that is on Fitz - we need to evolve like Walker and Wilson did and address our talent gaps with something that will offset it. Just lining up and trying to smash the other team as Fitz prefers isn't going to cut it. Even Saban knows that with his talent. Why we think we can do so with the talent that we are limited to (for lack of better recruiting) I have no idea, but we no longer have Hank to carry us and cover up our perenially mediocre and boring offense.

As for being a developmental program, we better not be one if we are going to improve our stock. We better be hitting the portal as aggressively as MSU did and fill out our needs every year. We failed to bring in 2-3 experienced OL that could have helped us and 1-2 LBs to boot. Iron sharpens iron, so bringing in the best players you can to force anyone else on the roster to play better makes a ton of sense. Especially since I think we should have an edge in attracting experienced and proven talent to Evanston.

FWIW, I think we are 4-3 and maybe 5-2 if we didn't have a trash DC and trash defensive scheme .to start the season. To be any better (which should be our aspiration every year) we need to recruit better that we do and find an O that can score more points with what we have.

 

[zeek55]

Myth. We had plenty of upperclassmen on the field, and some of our best performers are new to the program (e.g. Clair, Robinson). 8 players on defense had starting experience from last year, and we also returned Samdup Miller who had 3 years starting, and added Meiser and Pooler who were starters in their previous programs and hence, not inexperienced.

Our D was solid, now that we are done with the JON joke and bullshit of a defense. Agree with WaveJumper that Michigan was just better than we were, but we still held them to 10 points in the 1st half (not bad) and I think they just tired and got beat up in the 2nd half because the O kept handing it back. Its our O that's a bigger problem, specifically our OL. Anderson is an improvement on Cushing, but something is wrong that 3 years in, he still doesn't have more of his players ready to go. Bajakian is an improvement on McCall, but we really need Kevin Wilson or someone else who has some imagination to get creative and be able to beat offenses with some scheme and play calling. We are way too vanilla and I get that is on Fitz - we need to evolve like Walker and Wilson did and address our talent gaps with something that will offset it. Just lining up and trying to smash the other team as Fitz prefers isn't going to cut it. Even Saban knows that with his talent. Why we think we can do so with the talent that we are limited to (for lack of better recruiting) I have no idea, but we no longer have Hank to carry us and cover up our perenially mediocre and boring offense.

As for being a developmental program, we better not be one if we are going to improve our stock. We better be hitting the portal as aggressively as MSU did and fill out our needs every year. We failed to bring in 2-3 experienced OL that could have helped us and 1-2 LBs to boot. Iron sharpens iron, so bringing in the best players you can to force anyone else on the roster to play better makes a ton of sense. Especially since I think we should have an edge in attracting experienced and proven talent to Evanston.

FWIW, I think we are 4-3 and maybe 5-2 if we didn't have a trash DC and trash defensive scheme .to start the season. To be any better (which should be our aspiration every year) we need to recruit better that we do and find an O that can score more points with what we have.

Yeah, and time of possession was Michigan 40 minutes.

I'd challenge any defense to hold serve for 2/3s of game time; the blunt reality is that our offense just could not sustain drives.

Defense wasn't the problem this past weekend; our defense looks serviceable right now.

And I agree 100% about the development program stuff; this is the portal era. While we have to develop recruits as well as we have in the past, we have to win at the portal regularly like with Ramsey/Robinson to be able to maintain a high level of consistency. Getting great players for a year or two at a consistent level is a pipeline that you have to be able to maintain.

And more importantly, that's the key to a quick turnaround. Michigan State proves that anybody can bounce back fast off a bad year or if you whiffed/missed on a lot of recruits.

We must be able to pull that off to avoid a 2-3 year rebuild.

 

[jensberg]

We tend to be a developmental program and that means we do better when we have a lot of upper classment that have been playing together and don't make mistakes. Last year we had that. But we lost a lot after the season and the new guys just not up to speed. That is not saying that Mich is not more talented because the certainly are. We tend to lose about 8 or 9 of ten recruiting battles to them. But this year is also about being inexperienced at a lot of positions and we can not afford that against a team like them.

Our entire starting DL are seniors

 

[Go Catz]

Our entire starting DL are seniors

Adebawore is a junior. But you're right, they are all veterans. We're going to have more turnover in the defensive front 7 next year than we did this year.