The Cute and the Curious
Michigan’s playcallers fucked around, found out…
First off, Happy New Year. It was a busy day. So busy that I didn’t make a peep on Twitter. Or a toot on Mastodon. So busy that I didn’t have a chance to weigh in on the little Michigan/TCU college football game today. You know, the one for a spot in the National Championship game? As we end this day, I thought I’d crack open a beer and jot down some thoughts after catching up on the game.
Yes, Michigan lost. Yes, it was mildly heartbreaking. But it was a great game. The end was like Rocky vs. Drago — all massive swings to stay in it. No defense. Michigan had a legitimate shot to win it in the end, which is all you can ask for, and it just didn’t happen. It was a great season — first time ever at 13–0. Bucked the Fuckeyes. Again! Now Michigan ends at 13–1.
Hard to complain. But I will. Because this is the internet.
Look, I like TCU. They’re a good team. I find the “Hypnotoad” mascot thing a bit dumb,¹ but you do you. Max Duggan is a nice story.² And TCU itself is a good story. But let’s just say it: TCU did not win this game, Michigan lost it.
Worse, Michigan lost it in the first quarter. Because their playcalling was atrocious. Yes, the refs fucked them by taking away a touchdown.³ A touchdown which was called on the field, no less. A touchdown that you won’t find anyone except for the one official who just happened to very quickly review and overturn the call to say it wasn’t a touchdown. A touchdown. In a game lost by 6 points.⁴
Still, Michigan got the ball at the one inch line. Then they got cute. They kept getting cute. I fucking hate cute.
Yes, I know cute worked against Ohio State. This was a cute play. But the truth is that Michigan needed to get cute to beat OSU. A more talented team, in their home stadium. They did not need to get cute to beat TCU. They got cute to be cute. How’s that working out for you? Being cute?
You have the best O-line.⁵ You have a great running back — yes, even the backup running back. Run the goddamn ball right up the middle. Or how about this: you have a great QB. Do a fucking QB sneak. Just fall forward.
Whatever you do, do not — I repeat — DO NOT do this.
All month long leading up to this game, we heard about how great of a second half team Michigan was. And it’s true. And it was true in this game too. But the reality is more nuanced than just the numbers. Michigan was a great second half team because they were a dominant running team with Blake Corum as their top back. The playcalls were simple and obvious: run Corum. Because he’s so good, he rarely got tackled for a loss. And often got about 5 yards (and often far more). Rinse, repeat.
This not only took pressure off of QB J.J. McCarthy, it meant he didn’t have to do much beyond converting a few third-and-shorts. This is why the media was lulled into believing he wasn’t a great QB leading into the Ohio State game. Then Corum went down and J.J. had to step up. And he did.
But anyway, back to the running game. It’s why Michigan was such a great second half team all year. They wore everyone down. When Donovan Edwards spelled Corum, and when he had to step into the top role, he was great too. But he’s a different type of back. Much taller. More of a homerun threat, as he proved at Ohio State — and on the very first play today. With a cast on one hand, no less.⁶ But one thing he was not was Blake Corum. That’s not a knock. He’s different (and in some ways, better). But Michigan could not run the same Blake Corum playbook with him. The stats sort of deceived to suggest they didn’t miss a beat in the running regard. But again, it was largely Edwards’ homerun runs.
All of that is to say that Michigan has had a playcalling problem all year. But Blake Corum masked much of it. It almost lost them the game against Illinois once Corum went down. And J.J. and Edwards came into their own in the second half of the Ohio State game with Corum out.
All year, Michigan has been great at opening drives, which are all scripted in advance of the game, of course. Then they start to disappear behind obvious playcalls. Again, Corum made this work. But Michigan started to truly shine when opposing Ds would wear down. And when the players would start to improvise. I’ve said it time and time again. The playcalling sucked. And today was no different. But today was worse because there was no Corum.⁷
Michigan has co-offensive coordinators. I think they need to change that immediately. Here’s an idea: they should have one offensive coordinator. To, you know, coordinate the offense. One chef in the kitchen. One person with whom the buck stops.
I don’t know this for sure, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that in a dynamic where there are two people in charge, one or both of them naturally try to do things to stand out. It’s human nature. And that, I suspect, is where cute play calls come from. They stand out when they work. Unfortunately, they stand out even more when they don’t work. And they often don’t work. But again, the point is that Michigan didn’t need them to work — or to be run at all — against TCU.
On the flip side, we have the obvious plays. Today, like most first halves this year, TCU seemingly knew every play Michigan was going to run. Because everyone knew every play Michigan was going to run. It was mostly runs. Without Corum. I would contend that at a high level, if they just ran the exact opposite of the play they chose — so a pass when they ran, and vice versa — the results would have been far better. Instead, they tried to vary the routine with cuteness. It was either entirely obvious or dumb. There was no in-between. There was no “oh wow, good call”. There never is. There is great execution of obvious calls or cute calls which are hard to execute.
Because Michigan was 13–0 and putting up a lot of points, it masked this glaring issue all season. Winning does that. But it was the result of great players making great plays in spite of the shitty playcalling. Again, especially in the first half of games. You can’t consistently beat good teams with that M.O. Michigan saved the season a few times in the second halves against the good teams. But the same old story plus the mistakes made the comeback ultimately insurmountable versus TCU. Again, a good team.
Michigan didn’t deserve to win that game even though they were the better team for a sizable portion of it. Because the playcallers fucked around and got found out. And I’m not even that mad because their gameplan would have never beat Georgia. Yes, this is a better team than last year’s and would have fared better against Georgia. And yes, Ohio State took Georgia to the brink. But Ohio State is far better suited to beat Georgia than Michigan is with their crap playcalling. Michigan beat Ohio State because a few awesome players made a few awesome plays and then they just rammed the ball down their throats for the second year in a row. It was a vibe shift thing as much as anything else. That would not have worked against Georgia. So yeah, maybe best to kill that hope now.
I’m guessing that Georgia beats TCU by 20.⁸ Not because TCU isn’t good, but because they’re also not suited to play Georgia and because Georgia is great and because Michigan should have — and nearly did — put up 60+ against TCU. Instead, they got cute, settled for 45 points, and got found out.⁹
Published on January 1, 2023 📆🎉🎇🍾
Written from Waiheke Island, New Zealand 🗺
Written on a 2022 M2 MacBook Air 💻
Enjoying an Aro St Garage Project Beer 🍺¹ Am I the only one getting a sort of Battletoads vibe?
² He did not have a particularly great game here. He was good at evading the pass rush and keeping plays alive, but he completed under 50% of his passes and his WRs did most of the big number work. Just facts.
³ And yes, there was very clearly targeting at the end of the game. But I’m not sure how much that would have mattered. We were in full-on slop broken play chaos at that point.
⁴ Impossible to know what that touchdown does from that point on, of course. Michigan would have been down 14–10 having just intercepted Duggan and scoring on a 50 yard pass. That’s not just momentum, that’s atomic units in a supercollider. That’s a score from which Michigan can run their typical gameplan. No Corum still, but still…
⁵ The O-line, sadly, did not play up to their (rightfully lofty) standard here. Credit to TCU’s schemes.
⁶ The cast was smaller today, but it persisted. It’s truly amazing how good he was with it.
⁷ And yes, Michigan made a few mistakes, which they don’t normally do. J.J. had two pick-sixes. So for all the talk about how poorly Michigan’s D played, remember that 14 of the points were not on them. And Michigan still had a chance to win even after two pick-sixes! Had they not been cute, those wouldn’t have mattered. But they did.
⁸ I know this sounds like me being a dick. Sour grapes. But I truly believe this will be the outcome of the final. Anything can happen in one game, of course. But if Georgia played TCU twenty times, it’s a 20-point-plus game at least a dozen of those games.
⁹ I do think Michigan has a legitimate shot to be truly special next year. The upside of Blake Corum getting hurt was that it forced our co-offensive coordinators to “let J.J. cook” and he did against Ohio State, and again today. You add a consistent run game to that and — maybe not even having three, four, or 100 offensive coordinators can fuck that up…¹⁰
¹⁰ Then again, that’s if Harbaugh stays…
