Wolverine247 Board

I just dont see us scoring more than 30 points with these types of offenses. No hurry up and all the time will be taken from running the ball clock never stops. I see it as 24-13 Michigan.
IMO... V Smith and K, Kroger have a big day with rb screen passes and TE pop passes for big yards to keep the chains moving.

I'm a bit worried about whether or not Kovacs plays. He is one of our surest tacklers and we may need him to stop the big runs. If it works out anything like MSU did I'll be worried the whole time. I do think our Offense will mov the ball well and Denard will have a good day running the ball. Fitz chimes in for 110 and a TD Michigan wins 27-17.

The only think I'd be concerned about is going away from your RBs if they don't work early. IMHO, you guys abandoned your RBs way too early against MSU. Midway through the 2nd Q, we knew they weren't a threat anymore and just started teeing off on Shoelaces. Have to keep the defense honest, and with the way Toussaint ran last week, I'd give him at least 15 carries, preferably 20 or so.

Iowa has a disciplined defense, but they aren't overly athletic. Though I hate the line "Make plays in space", that's exactly how UM wins this game. One exception would be the Iowa DBs, who I feel are very good. Hyde is a game-changer, no doubt about it. The last thing UM can afford is an INT early in the game that makes the game 14-3 Iowa. It happened to MSU a year ago, and we were never able to get the momentum back.

Now, different teams in different years, so I'm not saying that UM is screwed if that happens. I'm just saying that Kinnick can get real rowdy, real quick, and the results are usually not good for the visiting team. The best thing ya can do is score early and often. Overly obvious? Probably, but I think UM has to avoid a slow start. Don't want Iowa to start to build confidence; don't let them up off the Minnesota mat, and I think you walk out of there 8-1.

In my opinion, this looks like the MSU game in a lot of ways.

Similarities:

MSU is similar to Iowa in that they plug in a bunch of "marginal athletes" (better than me, but not a lot of NFL material) and just stress fundamentals and basic football plays. Both are solid teams, but not top teams.

Both establish the run, have a servicable QB and have one ONE big time WR.

Both MSU and Iowa play tough, smash-mouth football in the trenches.

The sidelines in Kinnick are narrow and the home crowd tough, just like MSU.

Wind might be a factor in the Iowa game too.

Differences:

Most importantly, Iowa is not coming off a bye week with a coach who is obsessed with beating UM.

Iowa is not as deep as MSU, nor as fast on defense.

Iowa does not have a senior QB.

Iowa plays more disciplined football than MSU and its losses are close because they keep themselves in games.

My verdict:

In the proverbial "gun to my head" sccenario, I would say Iowa will win for one simple reason...the game is at Kinnick and we still play a lot of young guys. Playing at Iowa is just too tough and Michigan has some size/depth issues of its own during this transition from spread and 3-3-5. If this game were in AA, then I would think Michigan would roll easily.

As all the other B10 schools can attest, winning on the road might be the toughest thing to do, regardless of opponent. MSU's narrow win over a sanction-riddled OSU team with a true frosh QB in his B10 opener might be the most impressive road win so far.... think about that sentence for a minute. If UM can beat Iowa, it would at least equal that accomplishment (both Iowa and OSU are 5-3 and win at home).

Now, if Michigan has, in fact, improved from earlier in the year and they win this game, I think the table is set for a great run to end the year.

Yea, barring a broken play (and that could happen), I really doubt you throw deep on Iowa. Their biggest weakness are the LBs in pass coverage; the short sideline routes should be open. I'd run bubble screens to your WRs; middle screens to RBs have a tendency to get blown up against the Hawkeyes (they don't blitz their LBs much, so they're usually in position to hit the RB hard on a screen).

Basically, you have to out-athlete Iowa. They rarely beat themselves, and their QB plays lights out at home. UM has to be even on TO margin or better, IMO. I do think that if this game was at UM, you guys win by 10+.

The biggest factor I see in this game is that Iowa's conservative playcalling will give Mattison and Borges a huge opportunity. Michigan State focuses on the Michigan game and tries to add a ton of wrinkles to the game plan that we haven't seen on film. Iowa has never really done that before and what you see on film is what you should expect. Defensively, Mattison should be able to look at the downs and guess run-vs-pass to execute a play geared to stopping one or the other. He won't guess right every time, but even getting 60% right will put the defense in a good position to get off the field. For Borges, Iowa has never really thrown complex blitz schemes out there, though maybe they will this year since their D-Line is not nearly as good as previous years. If they don't blitz a ton like MSU did, it should give us some good lanes running to open up the pass.

FWIW, we didn't do anything fancy on offense, and were able to get a lot of pressure with just our front 4 (each of the starting D-linemen had a sack), then compounded it by the OLB blitzes. The craziest thing MSU did defensively was blitz Johnny Adams off the edge on 4th and 1, which worked perfectly with Borges' call of a play-action pass. We didn't do much zone blitzing, or even disguising our blitzes. We have an athletic group of DEs, DTs and OLBs, so basically used speed off the edge while sealing the middle with the DTs.

Our run plays were mostly off tackle, with a few zone blocks thrown in, and we relied on a short-passing game. KC's 2 TD passes were both on YAC by Martin. It's not as though we did anything fancy on O.

Iowa's D-line is not as good as ours, and certainly not as deep. They won't blitz much either; they don't have the athletes and it's not their scheme anyways.

yea, that sucked. 2 attempted spinal taps = not fun. The second one they got the needle 85% of the way in, then hit a nerve. I've never been so freaked out than when I felt pain shoot all the way down my left leg. They removed the needle to try another angle and my whole body started shaking uncontrollably. Scary stuff. Had to stay in the hospital to rule out meningitis, was quarantined, everyone had to wear masks around me, etc. Fever spiked to just over 103 the first night. Not fun.

I'm glad I recovered so I didn't have to go on the meningitis antibiotic regime [yikes]. Because they couldn't get the tap, they couldn't be sure, but my neck stiffness started abating a bit over 24 hours after I was admitted and is totally gone now. One my fever dropped to the low 100s, they figured the worst has passed and I was ok to go home. Still missed Monday of work (was in hospital Wed - Fri) and didn't work a full day till yesterday.

Sorry for the thread hijack, wanted to say thanks to you and everyone else who wished me well (I saw the UM posters who did that on our board, didn't see tBB thread, if there was one).

That 4th-and-1 play still kills me because our backup TE Brandon Moore had an epic fail. I can't bear to link the replay, but at the snap Adams comes off the corner where Moore is, but Moore just decides to stay in his stance an extra second and then block nobody. Had he reacted at all, he would've been in position to at least slow Adams down somewhat..

On offense, the thing that looked "new" to me was the cut-blocking of our D-Line. I haven't closely watched MSU games this year, but didn't remember seeing that. It looked to me like your coaches were playing chess and decided they would sacrifice their OL being on the ground in order to get Mike Martin and Van Bergen on the ground too, knowing our LBs were the weak link and could be beaten, which they were.

Iowa's front-7 has pretty much one good guy (Daniels) who could be in the discussion with Worthy, Gholston, Allen, and Norman, but that's it.

21-16. I think Michigan scores early and gets a 21-10 lead and Iowa gets stoned inside the red zone and has to settle for FGs.

Breakout game for Koger.

Fitz and the Oline need to have a good game in order to control the ball and let Michigan pick their spots to get a bit more aggressive perhaps.

Thanks again for designing the badge. Now I have to stalk you to pass out +1s

This, what really has killed us in the running game is when a rusher has been able to get to the edge playing on indecisive LB play. I also agree w/ Rocky, Michigan can't give up on their RB's like they did against MSU.

And as someone above mentioned, Vandenberg isn't very mobile. I wouldn't necessarily call him a statue, as I've seen a lot of QB's with less mobility, but his pocket presence isn't very good. However, if he has time, I think he's the best pure passer in the conference, or at least a solid second behind Russell Wilson. McNutt is a an outstanding receiver, and Keenan Davis (assuming he's healthy) and Kevonte Martin-Manley have also made some huge plays, especially at home. If Iowa can establish the running game with Coker, any combination of these three guys could have a big day if Michigan can't get consistent pressure on Vandenberg.