September 26, 2024

WTKA Roundtable 9/26/2024: More Fun to Experience than Break Down

54 minutes

Things Discussed:

Love to Sam Webb, who's attending the funeral of his younger brother.

USC game: They couldn't pass the ball because they couldn't protect him long enough to drop back.

Craig: A whale came in late for Michigan in the betting markets.

Brian: Michigan not running zone read offense much with Orji, doesn't feel like they know what to do with a running QB.

Seth: You can play no-read, and they did some of that, but you need play-action off that and they haven't built any constraints into those plays. Harbaugh always recruited an athlete and a pro-style QB but usually the athlete becomes something else, doesn't seem like this program was prepared for the athlete.

Brian: the big runs were more USC blowing something, now that teams have scouted Michigan's Orji offense those cracks are going to go away. Time to celebrate the win was Mon-Tues but on Thursday we have to face the grim reality that there isn't much upside because it's not what this staff wants to or knows how to run.

Passing game? Orji got one dropback when he wasn't under pressure and he didn't see an open Marlin Klein.

Brian's pretty down on this offense staff's ability to adjust to their personnel.

Defense: Wink Martindale's presser pushed back against the narrative that he blitzes too much. Not a good look, not because he's wrong but because he's getting defensive—we think he was responding to Klatt not this site by the way.

Actual Wink complaints from this site: Design of his blitzes are leaving the spot open where the pressure's coming from, which is the thing Mac and Minter were very good at taking away.

Other issue is Wink doesn't have a feel for when to call things, IE on standard downs. Like, someone busted on the cover zero (minus-one), but why is that blitz coming from Mars, because there's no way for it to be relevant. Play before that they had Iwunnah set an edge. Big run on 3rd & 2 they slanted with Grant stunting, and two LBs taking the interior: it's a Barham-3 play, but why are we playing games? Play football.

Not saying don't do anything weird; if you want to get weird get weird but make sure it's a passing down.

Seth: This is all fixable. Macdonald had to make the same adjustment, he already

Brian: Probably not fixable, since John Harbaugh let him go and New York let him go. Is he self-correcting or this being forced upon him? Because it's not a good sign that he's accusing people of not knowing how many people are crossing the line of scrimmage..

Wink is right about one thing: If the narrative he's going to blitz it helps them. We saw this vs USC, which ran split flow to the TE in the flat three times hoping to get a nickel blitz and all they got was two zero yard plays in the red zone and the Jyaire Hill upending of a TE when Michigan sim blitzed the nickel.

Bringing Three: Works when your coverage is great. Josaiah Stewart was great in COVERAGE too: that guy's going in the first round.

Minnesota: If they can't run anymore they've lost who they are. If they can't tackle a running back I've got bad news for them against Michigan. Stewart has already had a great game against their star LT Aireontae Ersery.

...more

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By MGoBlog

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905905 ratings

September 26, 2024

WTKA Roundtable 9/26/2024: More Fun to Experience than Break Down

54 minutes

Things Discussed:

Love to Sam Webb, who's attending the funeral of his younger brother.