Spence wrote:I think Michigan is mostly just a QB away from being good. That is the one thing that Michigan always had when they were good and a big hole ever since.
I want to believe that too, but the pass protection is garbage. The receivers never get open. The running backs are fine, but they are not a special group. Michigan's problems are masked over when they play bad teams because they can force the run down the throat of undersized defenses, so when they play a Rutgers can they score 35 points and everybody is happy. But they have no passing game because the coaching is terrible and the scheme is terrible for college football. I've kept saying it, you're literally handicapping yourself by running this offense that forces you to convert multiple 3rd and mediums per drive just to get the to end zone. Michigan, on the rare occasions that they do score, usually do so without the benefit of a 30-40 yard big play downfield. Which is what teams like Ohio State and Oklahoma do constantly. Which is why they can score 30+ points against good defenses. It's not rocket science, but touchdowns count for less when it's done "the wrong way", or something.
And it's not hard to see why the attitude isn't there. It's the same reason Texas Tech will never go all the way, in reverse. It's not healthy when you have one side of the ball doing all the work all of the time only to see their efforts wasted due to ineptitude. It's partially why the defense gives up when things start going south because they know that the offense doesn't stand a chance, which puts more pressure on the offense, which causes them to fail.
This stuff is systemic and it's not going away over the next 8 months. My advice is to pay Kevin Sumlin $2 million to run the offense with Shea Patterson, but I think we know that will never happen. It'll be the Drevno / Pep Hamilton show Part 2. Michigan will be 7-5 next season, mark my words. Hey, I was right about 8-4 when all of the homers were calling me a party pooper when they kept saying that this young team would surprise everybody while I was a voice in the wilderness screaming about our offensive B.S.