Things Discussed: Al Borges has groupies. Iowa takeaways: 26-0 was good. Can't be 26-3, needed to come down after the intensity of OSU. Offense missed some opportunities: get a catch from Barner or Loveland and it looks different. Love that they gave Semaj Morgan another chance to get on the mic. Using Edwards: get him running, not reading. Sainristil: He's going to be drafted. Iowa: yes, but there were non-Iowa moments. He's playing cornerback very well. Portal talk: Not worried about Trente anymore. Walter Nolen? Sam says they need clarity on whether he's even in the portal. Hard to move on a QB when you don't know what you've got. They're in on the OL from A&M. Can't offer starting spots. CFP: Absolutely got it wrong. FSU had a better end to the season than Alabama, their 2nd string QB will be back, all of the arguments for Alabama are ridiculous post-hoc excuses for putting an SEC team in the Playoff. Michigan ends up better off because T
11/18/2023 – Michigan 31, Maryland 24 – 11-0, 8-0 Big Ten Michigan got up 23-3; they'd paved Maryland on a couple touchdown drives, forced a fumble out of Taulia Tagovailoa for a touchdown, and blocked a punt. Hooray, another one of these games, can we please fast forward to next weekend. I no longer want football to be happening, because Roman Wilson has already exited this game and there is no reason to continue this exhibition before the main event. Then the other football game happened. You know, the one before Ohio State where everyone wants to fast forward to The Game but the opponent will not cooperate and Michigan gets stuck in a slog. This one wasn't as bad as last year's Fiesta Del Field Goals against Illinois, but happy sim-to-end thoughts got replaced by grimmer ones as Michigan kept losing players and Maryland kept hanging around. There was a terrifying targeting review on Mason Graham that would have knocked him out of the first half of The Game; Myles
PERSONAL NOTE: This is going to be short. Had some of the ol' norovirus this week. Do not recommend. Also… this game was a nothing. FORMATION NOTES: BGSU did not blitzball their linebackers, preferring to read and react. They did perpetually stick their safeties inside of ten yards, and sometimes inside of five: Like everyone else on the schedule they used a lot of 404 tite; they also rotated between various 4-3 looks. SUBSTITUTION NOTES: The usual on the OL until they pulled Hinton on the third drive of the second half the second real one since #2 started on the BGSU 2 for Henderson, flipping Barnhart to RT. Wilson and Johnson were almost omnipresent at WR; Morris only got nine snaps. No other WR got in before garbage time. At TE, Loveland and Barner both got slightly more than half the snaps; Bredeson got a little over a dozen; Hibner got in for four. Corum and Edwards split snaps about down the middle, with a handful of two RB snaps. [After THE JUMP: less UFR than usual]
9/9/2023 – Michigan 35, UNLV 7 – 2-0 I thought about copying and pasting last week's column and seeing if anyone noticed. It would have various references to ECU instead of UNLV, but acronyms are acronyms and maybe it would slide by. The accounting of JJ McCarthy's incompletions would be off by one and factually inaccurate, sure. I was banking on the nuclear glow coming off of McCarthy's arm obliterating all detail and leaving nothing but a crater of Buddhism (but fun!). I could have gotten away with it, I'm sure. The pattern of this game was the pattern of the other game: big long Michigan drives on which some disappointing run plays are washed away in a torrent of third and medium conversions. JJ McCarthy's eyes glow white and he starts levitating. The opposition can do nothing on the interior and cannot pass protect and is only able to eke out a first down or two. Michigan irritatingly turns it over on downs due to over-reliance on a dive play. They lose
2023 Recruiting: Nathan Efobi mgoblog.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mgoblog.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.