Like it or not, Herbstreit’s pretty accurate with this observation:
On Monday, Herbstreit was asked a number of questions during a conference call with reporters, including about whether or not Michigan can do what Alabama did to Georgia in the SEC Championship game.
“It wasn’t just the scheme,” Herbstreit said. “It was two players. It was Bryce Young and Jameson Williams, I mean you’re talking about two of the elite players at their positions one won the Heisman trophy and the other one, you could have made an argument had a good enough year to be right there to win it as well, but he’s on the same team.”
Michigan is a formidable team, but there’s formidable and then there’s a level above formidable. And there is no Young or Williams on the Wolverines’ roster.
“So you’re talking elite players,” Herbstreit said. “The one question on Georgia before the game, in fact, we talked with Dan Mullen, the former Florida coach, on game day that morning. One of the segments we did was Georgia secondary. Whether or not, if this Georgia front, which has been dominant all year, if they don’t get home or Bryce Young is able to create, how good are they really on the back end? We just haven’t seen them tested. And that ended up being, as we know, a big part of how that game unfolded was what happened in the secondary.
“I’ve gone back and watched that game probably six or seven times. I don’t think it’s fair to put it all in the secondary. I think the front looked fatigued, for whatever reason, they didn’t have the same juice that they played with most of the year.”
The question is, then, do you need elite players to expose Georgia’s defense?
“But I don’t think Michigan has an offense that necessarily you can just draw up a play or a sequence of plays and say ‘okay we’re going to be in a good spot to run the exact same offensive scheme that Alabama did. Hey, Alabama gave us the blueprint let’s just do exactly what Bama did.’ Just because that’s not their identity.”
Herbstreit says UM’s identity is running the ball mixed with enough trick plays to keep a defense honest. Will that be enough? I don’t know, but I sure think I’d rather take my chances with Young and Williams.
Get The Picture 
Games are about match ups and Michigan does not match up well.
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I’ve watched several of their players in interviews and they have been very focused. Their team seems to have that us against the world together we win mentality. Don’t sell a very well motivated team short. I expect a real test of wills on both sides of the ball. Our defense needs to protect the offense and not allow them to be forced to mount a comeback.
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So that’s what Tom Crean is trying to do when he makes that face….
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His observation that the defensive front lacked any juice is spot on. In the second quarter on several big players they just stayed at the line of scrimmage. I’ve read that was to contain BJ if so it was a terrible idea. They looked totally gassed. Bama did a great job of not allowing substitutions on those drives.
With the holiday break and the rash of illness hopefully conditioning is not a factor this week.
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Why were they so gassed though. Too much practice the week of? Certainly wasn’t from playing two back to back cupcakes to end the season. Bama should have been the ones gassed from their physical 4OT nail biter against the Barners.
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Rumor of a flu outbreak affecting them
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I thought defensive front looked less than optimal at the time also. Caveat: all my thoughts are just arm chair eyeball impressions, but I was disappointed that they weren’t more like all the rest of the season. Hopefully, whatever it was has been cured with some time off.
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We have a stronger roster – it’s up to the coaches to maximize their potential. If they do, we win.
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Kirby needs to out-coach Harbaugh, not just out-recruit him. UM will stay focused on us, I hope we’re not caught thinking about what will have just happened in Dallas.
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This UGA team was built to beat a team like Michigan. I don’t think it will be easy but we should have it wrapped up by the middle of the 4th. Of course if we turn the ball over a couple of times more than Michigan, we could be in trouble.
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I’m a nervous wreck…
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Buckle up, Spike. The Dawgs got this one.
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Well, there went any anonymity I had left.
-RangerRuss
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#i’manexcellentdriver
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We just assumed you were dunn with your secret mission away from here.
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My Toughbook didn’t survive the mission and I roughed up a piston rifle as well as, incredibly, an ACOG. I’m working off a virgin white Chromebook until the Big Brown Truck Of Happiness arrives with a replacement.
I’m getting too old for all this shit.
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I said I thought you were up in a fucking tree and people thought it meant I didn’t like you!!!!
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I84, you’re a Damn Good Dawg and seem to have a particularly elite attitude with concern to the Dawgs. I never saw you giving up on the Dawgs or putting up with those who do on this board.
I shoot a couple of young does every year as I like aged venison and to help control the population. Bit of payback for the damage their kind cause to my vehicles and landscaping also.
But I don’t climb a tree. Ain’t trophy hunting. It’s literally easier than killing penned livestock. Just walk outside early and apply stealth, marksmanship and the skills I learned on those frosty winter mornings dressing hogs for my uncles. By noon I have meat aging in the deerferator I share with Horndog Hans. No fried tenderloin cathead biscuit though.
Bad things happen to old Dawgs climbing trees. It ain’t the fall. It’s that sudden stop that hurts.
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I shattered my left leg in 18 fragments after football practice in 8th grade (didn’t keep me out of the Army). In 1975 I fractured my t-6 when my green beret buddy was fucking around with the cassette deck in his van and I spent 2 months in Grady and a year in a full body cast (me and another Vet watched the war end on the tv in the ward). I know about sudden stops!
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And, actually, the tree comment was more of a metaphor for “he’s in the bush some where”!
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Yeah man, those falls and crashes are cumulative. The morning aches have taken the place of hangovers I used to endure. They’re similar in sometime during the day I’ll feel better. A shot of Kentucky windage would help; but, that’s a dark road to head down.
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I’ve done that. Just email the Senator and he’ll take your name off.
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Let’s roll!
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I think it was far more ‘contain’ than ‘gassed’. We just weren’t aggressive up front. Kirby made the assumption we could out-man them. When that didn’t happen, Young’s ability to throw darts all day was a killer. It wouldn’t have made much difference if we had the best DBs in cfb.
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Agree…saw Davis just pawing Bama lineman rather than rushing. Blitz lanes were open, but no one was going. Looked like scheme more than fatigue. The D came alive midway through the 3rd, so either they got fed Redbull or someone figured out that pressuring Young limits his playmaking ability. 🤯
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I been reading a lot about elite this season. I know a little bit about elite. Elite can have a bad day, learn from the experience and not repeat it. Elite wipes the blood and snot off their face and gets back after it with a better plan and renewed determination.
Elite doesn’t quit.
There are some posters here on GTP with an elite attitude and you know who you are. There are also some of the boys second guessing and questioning ad nauseam the leadership and Smarts that took the Dawgs to 12-1 and an opportunity to win the NC. That sniveling shit gets you booted from an elite unit. I wouldn’t piss down a quitter’s throat if his guts were on fire.
And I wasn’t up a gotdam tree. Fuck Florida and the mule they rode in on.
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Some people just like to deny the nature of sport and competition and boil everything down to the result of any given situation.
I know not everyone has been “in the arena” (and many who haven’t HATE that talk, generally because if long-standing feelings of inferiority or insecurity, whether earned or unearned)… but everyone has played games. Likely, everyone has played multiple games against the same opponents. You play monopoly with your family, or poker with your friends, or cornhole with drunken tailgaters.
And the results change. The same person doesn’t always win…and your performance isn’t always identical in every outing.
College football teams get 12-15 games a year, and many people place far too much judgment on the outcomes of these limited exhibitions when assessing ability of a player/coach. Is the result the goal? Of course it is. You play to win. But failing to do so does not mean all is lost, and it does not mean everything you’re doing in the pursuit of that goal isn’t correct. It means the circumstances didn’t work out for you that time.
Like that time the dirtbag with 2-7 sucked out on the river. Or when your little sister kept rolling right past all your houses and hotels, but you landed on Boardwalk and Park Place in back to back rolls.
Assess where you went wrong. Assess where misfortune denied you. Fix what you can, let go of what you can’t, and play again.
And never forget… this is just your hobby… high blood pressure over the acts of 20-year old boys only has value if one is dating your daughter.
Go Dawgs
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Fine elucidation, Ben. Reasonable folks should value your experience. However, there is this confusing terminology that always brings out the sophomoric idiot in me that I despise. Yeah, I know it’s a beanbag game now. Where I come from cornhole was a shitty experience to be avoided except with la dame avec un cul superbe.
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Whoever decided to rename beanbags to cornhole needs to have their cornhole examined.
Lawrence said it best.
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LMFAO! I love Office Space.
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Damn right Ranger. I’m embarrassed to even say the name of that game around my wife and kids. Where I grew up, asking someone if they wanted to play cornhold was liable to get you a couple teeth knocked out.
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Don’t worry about it.
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We know from the last 2 seasons what gives this Georgia team fits: a strong-armed, accurate passer with a few future pros catching his passes.
That ain’t Michigan.
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If you can’t get pressure, you best be able to cover. We couldn’t do either against Bammer.
Imo, they didn’t just expose the secondary but also our scheme. All the different defensive formations have weaknesses and Bama exposed ours. Those 2 and 3 DL fronts with LBs chasing world class WRs often catch us in no-man’s land. Add in CBs who rarely look for the ball while also trying to shield a walk-on safety and it’s a tall order. Bama and LSU have both done the exact same thing to us.
The offense has to score and possess the ball.
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I’m not sure we can do what Auburn did since we don’t run two DTs and two DEs, or not without leaving the secondary even more susceptible. I also don’t see how we can do the same thing should we face Bama again. It seemed like the SECC was one of the more passive or reactionary game plans we’ve run. First things first, though.
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