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2016 Game #11 | #2 Ohio State @ Michigan State | November 19th, 2016 @ 12 PM

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Michigan just falling apart.

Christ.
 
Michigan could lose this game. Indiana isn't a bad team. They're grouped in with the likes of Iowa, Northwestern, and Michigan State that have good players, they just aren't consistent. They will beat you if you play like shit against them.
 
elcheato said:
Earlier this week she was trying to claim that Penn State winning the Big 10 would keep OSU out lol
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She hates us for some reason... 2014 she didn't even think we belonged in the same conversation with TCU and Baylor.
She needs to worry about cooking thanksgiving dinner and not about how worthy the Buckeyes are to make the CFB playoff.
 
I haven't watched the entire season but what is the temperature on Barrett here?

He has seemingly been bad in the handful of games I watched (IU, MSU, PSU and to a lesser degree Wiscy).

As a Michigan fan, I see his totals in these games and it strikes me as the fly in the ointment.

Looking at total defense, those are 4 of the 5 top defenses OSU played (all ranked in the top 50 of the NCAA in total D) and Barrett was not good at all throwing the football.

The outlier was Nebraska, who I think is inflated by a mediocre schedule (0 wins over CFP and AP top 25, #42 in SOS). The other 4 games (IU, MSU, PSU and Wiscy) are pretty ugly in total.

Has Barrett regressed? Play calling regressed? Both?
 
I'mWithDan said:
I haven't watched the entire season but what is the temperature on Barrett here?

Has Barrett regressed? Play calling regressed? Both?
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I think there's a host of factors that has limited Barrett's effectiveness this season, which is leading to some pretty pedestrian game performances:
  • No clear-cut #1 WR target - This has led to chemistry issues in general. We are still continuing to trot out new WR's and its the final week of the season. Barrett has appeared to press more these past few weeks when throwing, which leads me to believe the trust isn't all there. Timing is key to QB-WR success and when he has constantly had to adjust to the WR personnel, it's leading more incompletions on throws he had made with ease in the past. (when he was passing to the likes of Thomas, Marshall, Smith, & Zeke)
  • Vanilla play-calling in poor weather conditions - This is one of the only negatives i've witnessed with Urban at the helm. He tends to rely on Barrett's running ability when the weather conditions are poor. I think this has creative a tough team psyche to break, which has limited Barrett this season. People all of a sudden think Barrett is not capable of throwing deep. Some people say he's never been able to throw deep (not sure what they're watching), i think his growth has a passer has been hindered due to some conservative game plans lately, which is only continuing to exacerbate the problem mentioned above.
  • Play calling in general (lately) I am chocking this up to saving some packages for Saturday but i've been surprised that we haven't utilized the edges as much this season with the speed we have. Very rarely do we run screens....the few times we run sweeps, they are usually for good chunks of yards but it seems the past few weeks, we've relied way more on a traditional power running game (Can't argue with the results...averaging well over 250 a game)
Barrett has still shown he can make the throws (pass to Samuel this past weekend had great touch), it just seems with how green this team is, it's hindered his ability the most.
 
I agree. I think it is all confidence and play calling. I would like to see more screen and quick slants with the speed we have on the outside. While we do have a young wr core need to find away to let them make plays in space.
 
I'mWithDan said:
I haven't watched the entire season but what is the temperature on Barrett here?

He has seemingly been bad in the handful of games I watched (IU, MSU, PSU and to a lesser degree Wiscy).

As a Michigan fan, I see his totals in these games and it strikes me as the fly in the ointment.

Looking at total defense, those are 4 of the 5 top defenses OSU played (all ranked in the top 50 of the NCAA in total D) and Barrett was not good at all throwing the football.

The outlier was Nebraska, who I think is inflated by a mediocre schedule (0 wins over CFP and AP top 25, #42 in SOS). The other 4 games (IU, MSU, PSU and Wiscy) are pretty ugly in total.

Has Barrett regressed? Play calling regressed? Both?
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I also think it's multi-layered, but id put the largest blame on his QB coach and play-calling.

Tim Beck just isn't Tom Herman by any way, shape, or form and its plagued the offense. The play-calling has just been head-scratchingly bad at times with no rhyme or reason for what they're doing. Mike Weber will be gashing defenses on plunges, and they go away from it for 4 drives while they try and establish the short passing game. It's infuriating....like last year, it feels like they want to be balanced to a fault, and cut their nose off to spite their face.

Lack of outside receivers is a major issue as well. It's the same situation Meyer found himself in at UF, where a majority of his receivers were hybrid guys. Thankfully the Bucks have a few studs coming in that are true receivers, but right now their best outside threat is Noah Brown who is a former RB.

Lastly, their is no timing in our passing game. We literally fake zone read, use our run game as an impediment to the pass rush, and JT waits for a guy to break wide open unless it's an underneath throw. If the read isn't there, he's gone. But it isn't sophisticated at all, and I think generally pretty easy to defend for a defense. Again, it's not much different than how Tebow operated. Thankfully, the power-run game has been decent and keeps defenses honest just enough. And it wasn't as if Herman's offense was that sophisticated, but there were definitely more elements of a rhythm based passing game. Seam routes to TE's come to mind immediately. We get Baugh involved this season, but it's nearly all on check down or waiting for him to sit down in zone coverage. It's completely non aggressive.

Truth be told, Bama beats the Bucks by 21+ points IMO....and Michigan for that matter. Neither team has enough wrinkles offensively to stop them from man-handling the LOS.
 
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Kbiz8288 said:
I think there's a host of factors that has limited Barrett's effectiveness this season, which is leading to some pretty pedestrian game performances:
  • No clear-cut #1 WR target - This has led to chemistry issues in general. We are still continuing to trot out new WR's and its the final week of the season. Barrett has appeared to press more these past few weeks when throwing, which leads me to believe the trust isn't all there. Timing is key to QB-WR success and when he has constantly had to adjust to the WR personnel, it's leading more incompletions on throws he had made with ease in the past. (when he was passing to the likes of Thomas, Marshall, Smith, & Zeke)
  • Vanilla play-calling in poor weather conditions - This is one of the only negatives i've witnessed with Urban at the helm. He tends to rely on Barrett's running ability when the weather conditions are poor. I think this has creative a tough team psyche to break, which has limited Barrett this season. People all of a sudden think Barrett is not capable of throwing deep. Some people say he's never been able to throw deep (not sure what they're watching), i think his growth has a passer has been hindered due to some conservative game plans lately, which is only continuing to exacerbate the problem mentioned above.
  • Play calling in general (lately) I am chocking this up to saving some packages for Saturday but i've been surprised that we haven't utilized the edges as much this season with the speed we have. Very rarely do we run screens....the few times we run sweeps, they are usually for good chunks of yards but it seems the past few weeks, we've relied way more on a traditional power running game (Can't argue with the results...averaging well over 250 a game)
Barrett has still shown he can make the throws (pass to Samuel this past weekend had great touch), it just seems with how green this team is, it's hindered his ability the most.
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Makes sense. I did see they tend to really lean on him as a runner against better defenses. I think he averaged 20+ carries in the games against PSU, MSU, Wiscy, IU, etc. The per attempt numbers weren't great overall but if you can scratch out 3.5-4 YPC with a QB, it's easier yardage than some of the alternatives.

Will be interesting to see if Michigan opts for a heavy dose of man. They may just move the safety down and dare Barrett to throw. That game plan probably results in something on the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of possible results but if they don't force the action early, given the passing results in some of those games, I would be disappointed.

I'd live with Barrett throwing for 250-300 yards vs. letting OSU just opt to zone-read them to death all game. Michigan hasn't been great against the more mobile QB's, so I'm sure Ohio State will try to press the run game early with Barrett.

Is OSU generally healthy on D right now?
 
billmac91 said:
Truth be told, Bama beats the Bucks by 21+ points IMO....and Michigan for that matter. Neither team has enough wrinkles offensively to stop them from man-handling the LOS.
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It's important to keep in mind that Urban is one of the best game planners in all of football when given time to prepare for a single opponent. Alabama has shown little offensively that truly worries me, especially considering how well our D has performed.

Their defense is scary good and if we don't take chances, then I agree it will be a long day for us.
 
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