Well, that sucked. A friend texted me at halftime of last night’s game and said, “It looks like TCU is playing its best game of the year and Michigan is playing its worst.” And that’s about right. Michigan went away from what got it to the College Football Playoff by trying to be cute rather than tough. They played better when they stopped trying to be cute, but it was too late. I tweeted during the game:
Michigan had too much time to prepare. They’re trying to be cute instead of just playing football.
— Touch the Banner 〽️ (@TouchTheBanner) December 31, 2022
Philly Wasn’t Special. Jim Harbaugh took credit (blame) after the game for calling the Philly Special that failed spectacularly. Leave it to Michigan in a playoff game to be one of the few teams that can’t execute something that seems to have about an 80% success rate. The whole play was off from the beginning, from the timeout prior to the weirdly timed motion to the awkward lateral to Colston Loveland. It was a bad time for the call, and it was poorly designed and executed. The motion was too deep, the lateral was too deep, and TCU wasn’t in man coverage despite being on the goal line, so the cornerback was sitting in the flat where J.J. McCarthy was trying to sneak. Just line up in a heavy formation and run the damn ball.
Hit the jump for more.
Where are Khalid Hill and Ben Mason when you need them? Early in his Michigan tenure, Jim Harbaugh took a couple tight end/fullback type bodies and turned them into goal line machines. Hill had 13 rushing touchdowns in 2016-2017, and Ben Mason had 7 rushing scores in 2018. The vast majority of those scores came when Hill/Mason were lined up as fullbacks and got quick handoffs from the 1- or 2-yard line. The Josh Gattis experiment removed that play from the equation from 2019-2021, and Michigan decided to bring it back for the Fiesta Bowl. The problem? The guy they ran it with is a guy who has only been playing running back for a few weeks. (And don’t give me the “He was a running back in high school” bullcrap. Almost every FBS athlete was a jack-of-all-trades awesome athlete in high school, but that doesn’t mean they’re ready to carry the ball on the goal line in a playoff game.) Kalel Mullings looked extremely uncomfortable lining up as a fullback, and the handoff from an under-center McCarthy was a disaster from the start. I sat in a Nick Saban clinic one time and he said, “Think players, not plays.” Well, that play was another example – just like the Philly Special – where Michigan’s coaching staff was thinking of plays, not players.
Why was the ball on the 1-yard line anyway? The replay official was the only guy in the stadium who thought Roman Wilson was down on the 1-yard line after catching a bomb from McCarthy. A 51-yard touchdown pass was called a touchdown on the field, and yet despite incontrovertible replay evidence, the replay official said there was no touchdown. So then Michigan had to run an extra play to try to score, and Mullings fumbled. That was a total failure of the replay system, and the margin there (+6 or +7, depending on the result of the kick) ended up being the margin for the game.
J.J. McCarthy was alternately awesome and terrible. At a glance, McCarthy’s numbers were pretty darn good: 20/34, 343 yards, 3 touchdowns (2 passing, 1 rushing), and 10 carries for 52 yards. Sadly, McCarthy threw 2 interceptions. Oh yeah, and both interceptions were returned for touchdowns. That was 14 additional points for Michigan to overcome in a game that was decided by 6 points. McCarthy had only thrown 3 interceptions all season, and then he threw 2 touchdowns to the other team in this game. Both interceptions seemed to come when he predetermined where he was going to throw the ball, despite good coverage on the play. When McCarthy wasn’t throwing scores to the other team, he was throwing dimes downfield to the tune of 10.1 yards per attempt and nurtured two 100+ yards receivers in Ronnie Bell (6 catches, 135 yards, 1 TD) and Roman Wilson (5 catches, 104 yards, 1 TD). I predicted before the game that Wilson would have a big game, and in addition to those stats, he added an 18-yard touchdown run. (Oh, and he should have had +1 yard and +1 touchdown if the replay official didn’t have an aneurysm.)
I didn’t understand Michigan’s game plan. Maybe this is too high school of me, but the best way I know to defeat a 3-3-5 defense is to run unbalanced sets with heavy personnel. The 3-3-5 is designed to beat the spread, but Michigan didn’t go “all in” on going heavy. Instead, they often lined up in 12 personnel (1 running back, 2 tight ends) with a tight end lined up at fullback. They did this even after Luke Schoonmaker left the game with a shoulder injury, which happened after Michigan lost Erick All to injury earlier in the year. That’s not the best deployment of Michigan’s personnel. Freshman tight end Colston Loveland is not a blocker at this point in his career, and walk-on Max Bredeson is…ummm…definitely a warm body and stuff. How about using 4-star tackles like Trente Jones and Jeffrey Persi as extra tight ends/tackles to create mismatches? What advantage does Max Bredeson give a team like Michigan against a playoff team like TCU? Bredeson isn’t a great blocker and isn’t a pass receiving threat. I tweeted a prediction before the game that Jones would be an unsung hero in the game, and instead, he barely played.
Defensively, things went about how I thought they would. I did not expect TCU receiver Quentin Johnston to have a 76-yard touchdown catch on a shallow cross, but Michigan held the passing game in check for much of the game. Heisman runner-up quarterback Max Duggan finished 14/29 for 225 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions. Johnston had 6 catches for 163 yards and 1 score. The surprising thing was that TCU backup running back Emari Demercado ran for 150 yards on 17 carries after starter Kendre Miller (8 carries, 57 yards) left with an injury.
Michigan is the better team. Yes, I’m going to be That Guy. Michigan is better than what they showed. They should have won that game. They called a stupid play on the goal line (-7 points), another stupid play on the goal line (-7 points), and threw 2 pick-sixes (-14 points). The referees also inexplicably took away a touchdown, which is included in that calculation. That’s a swing of 28 points on four uncharacteristic plays. Michigan still managed to outgain TCU, 528-488.
It’s still an excellent season. The season ended on a sour note, but it does for almost everyone when a playoff is involved. When the 12-team playoff is instituted, 11 of those teams are going to end their season in disappointment. Right now it’s just 3 out of 4. This team still went 13-1, set a bunch of records, made the playoff for a second year in a row, beat Ohio State for a second year in a row, won a Big Ten Championship for a second year in a row, beat Michigan State, and beat Penn State. There are 131 teams in the country, and virtually every other player in America wishes he was suiting up wearing a winged helmet and playing on New Year’s Eve. Michigan is set up for success once again in 2023, and while it will be tough to get back to the CFP for another run at a championship, it’s still a goal within reach.
Go Blue!
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