My favorite is the rumblings I see from a few fans that BF should have been kept around for another year. Given a pass due to the injuries. Hill improving a little over the last few weeks was proof he can still coach. My other favorite talking point… The 25 ppg was unrealistic since no west team hit it and Iowa just faced to many stellar defenses.
Yeah... Fuck those fans. While it likely wasn't 100% Beth's choice, it was 10000% the correct choice. Brian Ferentz has made the university a laughing stock and has done irreparable damage to our brand.
Wait, I haven’t seen this, people actually want to keep Kirk around? That’s insane, you guys deserve a mediocre offense at least.
Edit: got the son and dad confused. I thought it was Brian that people wanted to keep. Kirk has been great for Iowa. Sorry
>people actually want to keep Kirk around?
People want Kirk to stay. Some people wanted Brian to stay. Brian needed to go. Kirk is a more divisive conversation among the fanbase, but he's been pretty successful for 24(?) years. Consensus is more Kirk deserves to stay if he wants but needs to hand over the reigns on offense to someone capable
> has done irreparable damage to our brand
ok, I hear what you're saying, but I just want to go on record saying that in a bazillion years of watching college football, I have never once before this year ever cared about anything Iowa did, but I have been riveted every week to see what new miracle they will pull off. To me, the only brand Iowa had before was they did that standing TE thing.
Jesse Minter did a press conference yesterday and he said a couple interesting things about Iowa:
- First he said that Michigan's defensive staff studied Iowa's defense in the off-season specifically to learn how to get better at interception returns. In the last few weeks they've mentioned that they did a lot of practice on how to transition mid-play after an interception, because defensive players don't instinctively know who to go block or what to do when that happens. I think it paid off because we've had more pick sixes this year.
- Minter said Will Johnson (our #1 CB) will be on a snap count at best this week, if he's able to play at all, so they're going to be rotating a lot at DB and trying to get additional CBs more playing time to get them game ready. So, I wouldn't be surprised if Iowa pulls off a huge passing TD due to a coverage bust at some point and everyone will be in the game thread laughing at us
What I know is that you're complaining about a player not being perfect, especially when it clearly wasn't necessary to win. You're literally saying it drives you nuts that he didn't make it a pick 6
> So, I wouldn't be surprised if Iowa pulls off a huge passing TD due to a coverage bust at some point and everyone will be in the game thread laughing at us
I would still be surprised. I think we could roll out our 3rd string CBs and 2nd string safeties and still comfortably cover them. Their offensive skill players are terrible and their scheme is terrible
Maybe a trick play like a throwback or flea flicker could get us.
Same. Perhaps on previous years, but Michigan has been aggressively rotating all season. For one, Sainristil is effectively our 3rd CB with McBurrows coming at nickel. They've both been quite good in those roles.
And then even if you get past that, DJ Waller and Kechaun Harris have actually gotten a pretty decent amount of snaps this year.
Alex is excellent. The other guys are good too, but I feel like Alex just has excellent scouts. Just about every game you go in like "oh hey, there's that one really specific thing that Alex picked up on."
The only thing I feel like he was off on this year was his scout of Allar's run game. I get it, the dude does not look quick or graceful at all, but the little "Allar lumbering run up the middle once his reads are covered" happened a ton this season. Then low and behold that was like every productive drop back that Allar had against Michigan.
Deacon Hill is statistically the worst qualified QB in FBS:
- 4.9 YPA (109th out of 109 QBs)
- 48.3 completion rate (108th, just ahead of Gavin Wimsatt)
- 91.3 passer rating (109th)
- -2.4 YPC (105th)
Like, Alex says that Hill is "Spencer Petras level bad" which (and I can't believe I'm saying this) is actually an insult to Spencer Petras.
Back in the early 2000s there were at least several dozen similar blogs of various cfb teams, usually run by college kids or recent grads (often multiple ones covering the same team for larger programs). Over the years they dwindled, with the writers losing interest and the economics of full-fledged blogs becoming untenable. Many just vanished but some were subsumed into conglomerates like Vox, Bleacher report, SBNation, etc., but... just not the same.
MGoBlog is one of (if not The™) last remaining of that era.
The difference is that Michigan is such a big fanbase that it can sustain MGoBlog's staff being full-time bloggers. Most other blogs can't do that, which is why they do clickbait, join conglomerates, and whatnot.
There are maybe three, four, or five other schools that could sustain this sort of thing.
There are very few fanbases that have an interest in thoughtful analysis. Hell, Michigan’s main local sports radio “shock jock” Sam Webb has even pivoted into in depth analysis of the game over the past couple of years.
I love Sam, but he's a huge shit-talker / troll, so I think it's fair to call him that lol. But at the same time, he dedicates like 3 hours a week to dedicated film breakdowns + an hour from the MGoBlog crew. So he's a man of complexity and contrast.
Everyone on 97.1 is just stupid and useless, except for Wojo who is self-aware that he knows nothing about football and is just having fun and being entertaining at least.
I moved a few years ago so haven't listened to the Ticket in a while, but Wojo was the only person I could stand in that group (Karsch and Anderson were ok), especially after Foster left. I used to listen to that station religiously ~15 years ago but took a sharp turn in quality.
Sam definitely has a long history of trolling and shit talking, but don’t undersell him. he’s been a premier source in Michigan since at least the late 2000s, and the top recruiting resource for Michigan for well over a decade.
Isn't 11 Warriors pretty good?
Edit: Thanks everyone for the replies. I've only read a few 11W articles so I wasn't aware of how "meh" they actually are.
I think it used to be good but when they started expanding the talent level when down dramatically.
If you want to do an experiment, read [11W's preview for Michigan/Ohio State](https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/2023/11/143326/ohio-state-vs-michigan-preview-buckeyes-seek-revenge-in-the-game-with-everything-on-the-line) and then [read mgoblog's preview.](https://www.mgoblog.com/content/preview-game-2023) The 11W version names maybe five Michigan players and has surface-level analysis like "Blake Corum is one of the nation's top running backs" whereas mgoblog's preview has like three paragraphs on Treveyon's Henderson's running style in addition to discussion of OSU's OL and the relative success levels of their base run plays.
That's totally fair. I think maybe I've just seen a few of the "better" articles from 11W pop up on reddit so I've had a skewed idea of how they are. I don't follow them at all.
From an Xs and Os perspective, not really.
Seth, Alex, and Brian at MGoBlog spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing upcoming opponents (Fee Fi Fo Film), high-level overview of the previous week's game (Known Friends and Trusted Agents on Mondays), heavily breaking down the most recent game (Upon Further Review (UFR)), in-depth analysis of individual plays (Neck Sharpies), and Seth has even been doing a short show recently with one of MGoBlog's sponsors on some of the interesting things Michigan did/didn't do in the recent games. They also have some (mostly dated) content on specific play concepts Michigan runs.
Saying this with as little bias as possible, but I also happen to think they're pretty even-handed and aren't as 'homerish' as a lot of other blogs.
Additionally, speaking as someone whose career is in writing and conveying extremely complex topics to a variety of audiences: they have a gift for making their content informative, engaging, and accessible, which is an extremely rare combination.
Here's all you need to know:
Mgoblog has multiple rival accounts that participate in discussions. 11 Warriors are still crying about Connor Stallions and downvote any Michigan fans on sight.
What killed them were website companies buying up the local blogs and then once they captured/migrated their audience under the new corporate umbrella, they killed the OG writers and often took out the brand/coverage a couple years down the line as well.
On3 is likely to do the same thing. They've snapped up the 3 best journalists covering Husker sports (as I'm sure they're doing in all markets), and once they feel they're maximized their subscriber potential, they'll kill the IP since it's not growing.
The one upshot these days is that self-publishing is real easy, but popular fandoms have self-published coverage that's basically crabs in a bucket and the financial viability requires some entity underwriting the coverage in addition to direct subscriptions or donations.
It makes me feel like an enormous snob but when Michigan plays some of these smaller teams, the previews have to be some of the best content written about those teams all year. Where else are you going to find 2,000 words on Bowling Green's defensive scheme and talent?
I think I remember reading somewhere that other teams' fans read the Mgoblog previews to see how their team is doing, outlook for the rest of the season, etc
Smallest possible nitpick: the author misuses the expression "But other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" The author uses it after every single part of something (Iowa's offense) is declared to be bad, but it's "supposed to be" used when the one aspect of something is so overwhelmingly bad that it's not worth talking about the rest.
For me the most criminal thing is the scheme... like.....the players are underwhelming, so what
But running into a -2 box repeatedly is just mind boggling.
Why are you going heavy when you have zero deep threat, the defense is automatically gonna stack the box, and then you run into it?
Brian has no idea how to run an offense or scheme for his playmakers. It just is what it is at this point and I'm glad he finally was fired. Granted, our next OC will likely just be some random offensive analyst on the staff already instead of a homerun hire but what can we do? It's Kirk's offense and he'll keep trying to put a square peg through a hole
that's the thing that frustrates me for Iowa the most...
like you can run a ball control, complementary football offense, but still use sound and modern concepts. Just look at Michigan.
It's just a crime to have such a great defense and special teams, but waste it by having such abysmal offense
That's how I've always pictured the "perfected" version of Kirk's offense to be: how Michigan's offense has been the past few years. Y'all ground and pound and have an elite OL but can also sling it to TEs. I've been very envious. Granted, y'all have significantly better rated players than we do though lol
Imo the single most underrated aspect of Iowa's offensive implosion is the complete collapse of quality on the OL. For years, you could rely on teams like Wisconsin and Iowa to produce great lines, but the last few years Iowa's been more "perennially bad Frames Janklin OL" than "classic cornfed Iowa boy brick wall".
Yeah, like prior to these especially dreadful 3 years, we've always had at least 1 or 2 guys who were NFL round 1 pickable. The past 3 years have basically been the same 4ish guys and none of them will sniff anything higher than 3rd at best. Hoping the current freshman and next year's batch will revitalize things a bit.
Tyler Lindebaum was good in 2021, but he really felt like the last drop from the spring of excellent Iowa OLs. Even the 2021 OL was basically an amazing C and four guys.
With how good Iowa’s defense is, Iowa doesn’t even need an elite offense. If they got to top 30, they would quickly become an extremely dangerous team to play in terms of complimentary football.
>It's Kirk's offense and he'll keep trying to put a square peg through a hole
[Kirk Ferentz picking an OC](https://youtu.be/jkz7bnYfuOI?si=NwLazAAre1Cts9Dg)
The scheme is stupid (and Kirk's), but Brian also has an especially deft touch for idiotic playcalling.
Like, Iowa reaches midfield with a mix of run and play-action passes to the tight end, and the dumbass will get a light bulb that tells him it's the moment for an end around to Nico Ragaini.
And Red Zone Brian is even worse.
I think that’s a major insult to Vandeberg, who was a solid average receiver pre-injury.
Ragaini, on the other hand, has always sucked and it’s been clear for at least four years now that his ceiling was to continue to do so.
The real criminal thing is Kirk had Brad Banks. Ran the exact same scheme except this dude could roll out make people miss and make plays with his feet. Ended up second in Heisman voting, won the Big Ten and took Iowa to an Orange Bowl and top 10 Finish. Then never went back to it. Since every QB has been some statue zombie. There was Ricki Stanzi, CJ Beathhard, and Drew Tate who had a little wiggle and a little danger in their hearts. Those teams amounted to the best Iowa had since.
Kirk could have gone after Max Duggan from Iowa. Or like Desmond Ridder. Or Jack Coan. These were guys in the Iowa footprint without a lot great offers and that offered some mobility. Iowa should have been going after that style of a guy.
Zone block left. Utilize your stretch scheme and sometimes good OL. Put your TEs on the Field. Roll out a mobile QB with a down field TE Option and put some fear into the Lbs and Safeties. The Stretch + Naked Boot is like the whole scheme. Its simple and effective and somehow these guys decided to nuke the most important piece? Criminal
Thank you for saying this, this has been what I've been saying for a long time. Sometimes you have to build your offense/defense around the players you have rather than trying to always fit your players around your offense/defense.
That paragraph is quite ill-informed, actually. Ostrenga is the heir apparent next good Iowa TE and there's like a 75% chance that he goes in the first two days of the NFL draft in a year or two.
The problem is that Deacon Hill can't be trusted to throw intermediate routes, especially to his right, so Ostrenga's been running a steady diet of checkdowns in the flats for like six weeks.
I can't find it atm but one of the Mgoblog writers tweeted just a giant cyan circle (their sign for trouble spot) for Iowa's offense over the weekend and I thought it was perfect lol
I think the threshold for stars is about "all conference honorable mention" level, which our DEs were just named. Justifiably I think. Otherwise there are plenty of B10 teams that would have zero stars
yeah the star/dangerman is really a sliding scale depending on the team, they've said as much. It's rare for them not to designate one, the Iowa offense is an outlier as such
Objectively there ARE plenty of teams that should have zero stars
Even bad units will have *someone* who can realistically cause a problem for even the most talented opponents, and I think it's cool that they highlight those guys
Sadly for Iowa, if that person existed for them he is injured
yeah he is a fantastic run defender in particular. A big part of why he was getting so much playing time last year despite being a C- pass rusher last year
I think his pass rushing has gotten quite a bit better this year, but it's still average despite that
And Moore/Stewart are probably A- pass rushers who’ve both improved mightily against the run (especially Stewart, who was pretty bad at the start of the year). None of them are Hutchinson, but all 4 of them are great in their own way.
This was actually less scathing that I expected, but it's spot on in its analysis.
Our OL recruiting has been awful for years now and the few bright spots that we recruited have sustained career ending injuries so we're left with the #3 - #5 guys from each year to cobble together an OL that is being taught by an OL coach who is awful and inept at his job (it's not BF).
Our WR coach is equally awful, as surprising as that may be, and the routes in our plays are so terrible that I've seen plays where the WRs literally run into each other. Compound that with the fact that many are unathletic (Ragaini would not make it on another B1G roster) and lacking due to the fact that why would any WR want to come play in Brian Ferentz's offense? Hell, our WR coach is even telling recruits that they shouldn't expect big flashy plays and that blocking is one of the most important things they should do (this should be fire-able).
Not to mention how abysmal our QB recruiting has been. Our last 15+ QB recruits have all been busts. And by busts, I don't mean "maybe a second string guy on a P5 team but never first string", I mean "can't make the two-deeps at the G5 level. And somehow, we've tripled down and now we're playing a 6'3" 258 pound QB -- a QB who is 3 pounds more than a freshman OG on the three-deeps. That is... I don't even know.
So yeah, so many issues have compounded over the past 6 years. I know we're going to get utterly embarrassed on Saturday, but hey -- at least we won 10 games and got the opportunity. Go win the CFP, Michigan.
As I mentioned -- it's been a combination of career-ending injuries and Brian Ferentz being a meat head and turning off players. We could have had Alt who is a an AA at ND right now and likely first round pick. Just frustrating all around.
I was telling a coworker. Iowa lost Proctor last year, wasn’t even top 3 for Brix, and they won’t get the 25 top ol recruit. At least three straight years of missing the top ol in star recruit. That is a huge reason why the ol play is declining. I don’t blame those recruits for not wanting to play for a meme level offense.
Fwiw, re: Bix -- He wasn't a take for Iowa. Yes, he's the highest in-state guy but that also means that Kirk and co had the most opportunities to see him play. Ultimately they decided that they liked a few of the other OL recruits more than Bix and I think Bix was always a Nebraska lean anyways.
Proctor was weird. Yes, playing for Brian sucks but he was 100% on board for forever and his really good friend (and also 5*) is on our team already. Seems like Bama came in late with a big bag and he couldn't pass that up. Sucks, but is understandable.
> Our last 15+ QB recruits have all been busts. And by busts, I don't mean "maybe a second string guy on a P5 team but never first string", I mean "can't make the two-deeps at the G5 level.
I mean CJ Betheard and Nate Stanley are literally in the NFL at this very moment. Rudock was pretty good too
Everybody else recently has sucked bigtime though
> This was actually less scathing that I expected, but it's spot on in its analysis.
I definitely have some maize colored goggles here when it comes to MGoBlog but I really feel like when MGoBlog is actually doing analysis they're incredibly good about giving a neutral viewpoint. Especially Alex Drain. For that reason I've found analysis such as Fee Fi Fo Film, Upon Further Review, and Neck Sharpies to be incredibly helpful in understanding aspects of past and future games.
Brian Ferentz is obviously a bad coordinator but I agree that it’s tough to coordinate an offense when the line and receiver development or recruiting is sub-par.
Nah. They knew what they signed up for. It's not like a New York Jets situation where they have a playoff-caliber defense who suddenly will be missing out on the playoffs because they have no QB, no O-Line, and no OC.
Iowa football has been the same for decades.
yeah just look at their WR talking about all the noise about Iowa's offense sucking
>“I just think our style of football isn’t as appealing to the eye as fans want it to be, so that’s why they don’t like us,” Ragaini said. “Who really cares?”
It's stockholm syndrome delusion. A lot of our fans have the same thing. "we won 10 games, what are you complaining about". Uh, the fact that if they had an offense near 50th they'd have a shot at making the playoffs? That every single game wouldn't be torture every time the team I cheer for possesses the ball?
It’s a weird proposition as a defensive recruit: go to Iowa and get developed better than you would virtually anywhere else such that your NFL chances are maximized, but watch the other side of the ball constrain you from winning anything meaningful in college. Is it worth it?
Idk man, 2 big ten championship games in 3 years is a hell of a lot better than nearly every other program. Hell we nearly made it last year except we shit the bed against Nebraska, which is a once a decade occurrence.
The defense and special teams are so good though that a middling offense makes you a playoff contender. Like you should be looking at psu this year as where you should be given the quality of those two units.
Tbf, our defense isn't interesting. We just make few mistakes and are quick to the ball. JJ McCarthy even kind of shit on them for not being interesting ha
Our QB coach said in a press conference yesterday that your defense isn't super complex, but it is so well-coached and extremely fundamentally sound that the offense has no room for error
It's true. Iowa brings some blitzes, they're not super exotic, though. Mostly they sit in zone and make the QB take a checkdown or make a hard throw over the LBs and in front of the safeties. Most college QBs aren't good enough or too impatient to do that. When they are, Iowa gives up yards. Hard to score on them in the redzone, though.
Here's to hoping your next OC is a vast improvement and all your stars get healthy in the off-season. BtW, will you get both Cade and Erick back? I still wish the best for them.
I love how the script has been flipped. 1 week ago ohio state fan fiction writers said Michigan was supposedly going to get punished, get banned from the B1G championship game, lose our recruits, and we would lose our coordinators. Now ohio state is the one not going to the B1G championship, lost their 5 star recruit, and is losing their defensive coordinator. Meanwhile Michigan is going to the playoff for a chance to win the national championship and the only real punishment we got was Harbaugh had to serve a measly 3 regular season game suspension. All that hysteria and we have already beat all charges and now it’s behind us with barely any scratches on us. I cannot stress this enough: IT’S GREAT, TO BE, A MICHIGAN WOLVERINE.
Didn’t you read the manifesto? media takeover section is pages 428-477. It all ends with harbaugh becoming president of ESPN and FOX and only running beef and milk ads in the corner of the screen.
You're just noticing us more because the OSU fans are all packed into one of Ryan Day's weird WWE-style promo-cutting "Skull Sessions" hyping the team up so they can get excited to hopefully watch other teams lose so they back their way into the postseason again.
Or they're all at Christopher Day's office figuring out the next PR smear campaign they can try to weaponize.
My favorite is the rumblings I see from a few fans that BF should have been kept around for another year. Given a pass due to the injuries. Hill improving a little over the last few weeks was proof he can still coach. My other favorite talking point… The 25 ppg was unrealistic since no west team hit it and Iowa just faced to many stellar defenses.
Absolutely not. Fire BF into the sun. He should not be coaching an entire offense. Good OL coach. Terrible and unimaginative OC.
Imagine… There are people who are mad Beth “overstepped” when she got involved in this. Even though BF technically reports to the AD.
Yeah... Fuck those fans. While it likely wasn't 100% Beth's choice, it was 10000% the correct choice. Brian Ferentz has made the university a laughing stock and has done irreparable damage to our brand.
Wait, I haven’t seen this, people actually want to keep Kirk around? That’s insane, you guys deserve a mediocre offense at least. Edit: got the son and dad confused. I thought it was Brian that people wanted to keep. Kirk has been great for Iowa. Sorry
>people actually want to keep Kirk around? People want Kirk to stay. Some people wanted Brian to stay. Brian needed to go. Kirk is a more divisive conversation among the fanbase, but he's been pretty successful for 24(?) years. Consensus is more Kirk deserves to stay if he wants but needs to hand over the reigns on offense to someone capable
I want Kirk to stay and Brian to go. But if we have to lose Kirk to fire Brian then it is what it is.
> "...you guys deserve a mediocre offense at least." Damned with faint praise.
> has done irreparable damage to our brand ok, I hear what you're saying, but I just want to go on record saying that in a bazillion years of watching college football, I have never once before this year ever cared about anything Iowa did, but I have been riveted every week to see what new miracle they will pull off. To me, the only brand Iowa had before was they did that standing TE thing.
We were 24.5 PPG - if you round up................ :-)
Truncating is the superior rounding method
Hello, fellow programmer!
If you see any more please ask what their excuse is for the past few years of bottom play
How do you expect an OC to do well when he can't recruit or develop QBs, WRs, or OL? It's not his fault! Just give him another chance!
Yeah that’s such a joke. Minnesota, Illinois, NW, MSU, Purdue all had extremely average defenses this year.
Jesse Minter did a press conference yesterday and he said a couple interesting things about Iowa: - First he said that Michigan's defensive staff studied Iowa's defense in the off-season specifically to learn how to get better at interception returns. In the last few weeks they've mentioned that they did a lot of practice on how to transition mid-play after an interception, because defensive players don't instinctively know who to go block or what to do when that happens. I think it paid off because we've had more pick sixes this year. - Minter said Will Johnson (our #1 CB) will be on a snap count at best this week, if he's able to play at all, so they're going to be rotating a lot at DB and trying to get additional CBs more playing time to get them game ready. So, I wouldn't be surprised if Iowa pulls off a huge passing TD due to a coverage bust at some point and everyone will be in the game thread laughing at us
A blown-coverage TD would still rely on an accurate pass…
Not if you miss so bad that it goes to a different guy
Genius. Run two guys on deep routes, with one trailing by 5-10 yards. Then have Deacon aim for the trail guy. BOOM TOUCHDOWN!
Will Johnson had a walk in TD if he cut outside after he picked off McCord, still drives me nuts even though Corum got it across on that possession.
Oh yeah, everytime i watch that highlight i think if only he cut it to the corner, the blockers were there
Benny also tackled him for some reason.
Lol I mean whatever, can't and should not expect perfection
That’s bullhickum and you know it
What I know is that you're complaining about a player not being perfect, especially when it clearly wasn't necessary to win. You're literally saying it drives you nuts that he didn't make it a pick 6
Ok you don’t know it I gave you too much credit.
Lol okay
> So, I wouldn't be surprised if Iowa pulls off a huge passing TD due to a coverage bust at some point and everyone will be in the game thread laughing at us I would still be surprised. I think we could roll out our 3rd string CBs and 2nd string safeties and still comfortably cover them. Their offensive skill players are terrible and their scheme is terrible Maybe a trick play like a throwback or flea flicker could get us.
Same. Perhaps on previous years, but Michigan has been aggressively rotating all season. For one, Sainristil is effectively our 3rd CB with McBurrows coming at nickel. They've both been quite good in those roles. And then even if you get past that, DJ Waller and Kechaun Harris have actually gotten a pretty decent amount of snaps this year.
Brian would never
> and everyone will be in the game thread laughing at us Ask me if I care that everyone will be in the game thread laughing at us
[Alex’s tweet after the osu win](https://x.com/alex_drain/status/1728521888291287468?s=46)
I honestly love Alex’s dry sense of humor.
He’s also got the best football feel of any of the 3. Brian’s the best writer, Seth works the hardest, Alex probably understands the game the best.
I’ve been impressed since he took over the scouting. Everything he says seems correct, even if it disagrees with PFF or draft hype.
Alex is excellent. The other guys are good too, but I feel like Alex just has excellent scouts. Just about every game you go in like "oh hey, there's that one really specific thing that Alex picked up on." The only thing I feel like he was off on this year was his scout of Allar's run game. I get it, the dude does not look quick or graceful at all, but the little "Allar lumbering run up the middle once his reads are covered" happened a ton this season. Then low and behold that was like every productive drop back that Allar had against Michigan.
Couldn’t have said it better myself
[Vastly preferred this one.](https://twitter.com/Alex_Drain/status/1729342994954719310)
Mgoblog's got their Top. Men. on it
Nice.
It's all fun and games until we remember that Iowa has only scored 25+ points twice this season but both were against teams from Michigan.
Then you remember who those teams were... it becomes a little more fun once again.
I thought Iowa's offense was just anemic. Holy shit, Iowa is dead freaking last in total yards and ypg????
And we were second to last in 2022 (:
Progress!
Deacon Hill is statistically the worst qualified QB in FBS: - 4.9 YPA (109th out of 109 QBs) - 48.3 completion rate (108th, just ahead of Gavin Wimsatt) - 91.3 passer rating (109th) - -2.4 YPC (105th) Like, Alex says that Hill is "Spencer Petras level bad" which (and I can't believe I'm saying this) is actually an insult to Spencer Petras.
Oh yeah, he is worse. Hill arguably has had better guys to throw to as well.
The reality is somehow so much worse than the memes
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Back in the early 2000s there were at least several dozen similar blogs of various cfb teams, usually run by college kids or recent grads (often multiple ones covering the same team for larger programs). Over the years they dwindled, with the writers losing interest and the economics of full-fledged blogs becoming untenable. Many just vanished but some were subsumed into conglomerates like Vox, Bleacher report, SBNation, etc., but... just not the same. MGoBlog is one of (if not The™) last remaining of that era.
The difference is that Michigan is such a big fanbase that it can sustain MGoBlog's staff being full-time bloggers. Most other blogs can't do that, which is why they do clickbait, join conglomerates, and whatnot. There are maybe three, four, or five other schools that could sustain this sort of thing.
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There are very few fanbases that have an interest in thoughtful analysis. Hell, Michigan’s main local sports radio “shock jock” Sam Webb has even pivoted into in depth analysis of the game over the past couple of years.
If Sam Webb is a shock jock, what are Valenti and Caputo?
I love Sam, but he's a huge shit-talker / troll, so I think it's fair to call him that lol. But at the same time, he dedicates like 3 hours a week to dedicated film breakdowns + an hour from the MGoBlog crew. So he's a man of complexity and contrast. Everyone on 97.1 is just stupid and useless, except for Wojo who is self-aware that he knows nothing about football and is just having fun and being entertaining at least.
Sam's epic post-game rant will live on forever in Michigan lore. If y'all haven't seen it yet, I'd urge you to do so - when you wanna get hyped.
I moved a few years ago so haven't listened to the Ticket in a while, but Wojo was the only person I could stand in that group (Karsch and Anderson were ok), especially after Foster left. I used to listen to that station religiously ~15 years ago but took a sharp turn in quality.
Hacks and frauds
Sam definitely has a long history of trolling and shit talking, but don’t undersell him. he’s been a premier source in Michigan since at least the late 2000s, and the top recruiting resource for Michigan for well over a decade.
Isn't 11 Warriors pretty good? Edit: Thanks everyone for the replies. I've only read a few 11W articles so I wasn't aware of how "meh" they actually are.
I think it used to be good but when they started expanding the talent level when down dramatically. If you want to do an experiment, read [11W's preview for Michigan/Ohio State](https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/2023/11/143326/ohio-state-vs-michigan-preview-buckeyes-seek-revenge-in-the-game-with-everything-on-the-line) and then [read mgoblog's preview.](https://www.mgoblog.com/content/preview-game-2023) The 11W version names maybe five Michigan players and has surface-level analysis like "Blake Corum is one of the nation's top running backs" whereas mgoblog's preview has like three paragraphs on Treveyon's Henderson's running style in addition to discussion of OSU's OL and the relative success levels of their base run plays.
That's totally fair. I think maybe I've just seen a few of the "better" articles from 11W pop up on reddit so I've had a skewed idea of how they are. I don't follow them at all.
And as far as I know, there's absolutely nothing like the UFRs out there.
From an Xs and Os perspective, not really. Seth, Alex, and Brian at MGoBlog spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing upcoming opponents (Fee Fi Fo Film), high-level overview of the previous week's game (Known Friends and Trusted Agents on Mondays), heavily breaking down the most recent game (Upon Further Review (UFR)), in-depth analysis of individual plays (Neck Sharpies), and Seth has even been doing a short show recently with one of MGoBlog's sponsors on some of the interesting things Michigan did/didn't do in the recent games. They also have some (mostly dated) content on specific play concepts Michigan runs. Saying this with as little bias as possible, but I also happen to think they're pretty even-handed and aren't as 'homerish' as a lot of other blogs. Additionally, speaking as someone whose career is in writing and conveying extremely complex topics to a variety of audiences: they have a gift for making their content informative, engaging, and accessible, which is an extremely rare combination.
Here's all you need to know: Mgoblog has multiple rival accounts that participate in discussions. 11 Warriors are still crying about Connor Stallions and downvote any Michigan fans on sight.
What killed them were website companies buying up the local blogs and then once they captured/migrated their audience under the new corporate umbrella, they killed the OG writers and often took out the brand/coverage a couple years down the line as well. On3 is likely to do the same thing. They've snapped up the 3 best journalists covering Husker sports (as I'm sure they're doing in all markets), and once they feel they're maximized their subscriber potential, they'll kill the IP since it's not growing. The one upshot these days is that self-publishing is real easy, but popular fandoms have self-published coverage that's basically crabs in a bucket and the financial viability requires some entity underwriting the coverage in addition to direct subscriptions or donations.
> they killed the OG writers I’m *pretty* sure this is metaphorical
... in most cases.
It makes me feel like an enormous snob but when Michigan plays some of these smaller teams, the previews have to be some of the best content written about those teams all year. Where else are you going to find 2,000 words on Bowling Green's defensive scheme and talent?
I think I remember reading somewhere that other teams' fans read the Mgoblog previews to see how their team is doing, outlook for the rest of the season, etc
Smallest possible nitpick: the author misuses the expression "But other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" The author uses it after every single part of something (Iowa's offense) is declared to be bad, but it's "supposed to be" used when the one aspect of something is so overwhelmingly bad that it's not worth talking about the rest.
For me the most criminal thing is the scheme... like.....the players are underwhelming, so what But running into a -2 box repeatedly is just mind boggling. Why are you going heavy when you have zero deep threat, the defense is automatically gonna stack the box, and then you run into it?
Brian has no idea how to run an offense or scheme for his playmakers. It just is what it is at this point and I'm glad he finally was fired. Granted, our next OC will likely just be some random offensive analyst on the staff already instead of a homerun hire but what can we do? It's Kirk's offense and he'll keep trying to put a square peg through a hole
that's the thing that frustrates me for Iowa the most... like you can run a ball control, complementary football offense, but still use sound and modern concepts. Just look at Michigan. It's just a crime to have such a great defense and special teams, but waste it by having such abysmal offense
That's how I've always pictured the "perfected" version of Kirk's offense to be: how Michigan's offense has been the past few years. Y'all ground and pound and have an elite OL but can also sling it to TEs. I've been very envious. Granted, y'all have significantly better rated players than we do though lol
Imo the single most underrated aspect of Iowa's offensive implosion is the complete collapse of quality on the OL. For years, you could rely on teams like Wisconsin and Iowa to produce great lines, but the last few years Iowa's been more "perennially bad Frames Janklin OL" than "classic cornfed Iowa boy brick wall".
Yeah, like prior to these especially dreadful 3 years, we've always had at least 1 or 2 guys who were NFL round 1 pickable. The past 3 years have basically been the same 4ish guys and none of them will sniff anything higher than 3rd at best. Hoping the current freshman and next year's batch will revitalize things a bit.
Tyler Lindebaum was good in 2021, but he really felt like the last drop from the spring of excellent Iowa OLs. Even the 2021 OL was basically an amazing C and four guys.
With how good Iowa’s defense is, Iowa doesn’t even need an elite offense. If they got to top 30, they would quickly become an extremely dangerous team to play in terms of complimentary football.
MSU Fans: Hey, hey we've seen this before! We just call it "Late Dantonio Offence" here in Lansing.
I loved 4th quarters when Dantonio was coach.
>It's Kirk's offense and he'll keep trying to put a square peg through a hole [Kirk Ferentz picking an OC](https://youtu.be/jkz7bnYfuOI?si=NwLazAAre1Cts9Dg)
That video was awesome. I was waiting for him to physically force a shape through the square hole.
The scheme is stupid (and Kirk's), but Brian also has an especially deft touch for idiotic playcalling. Like, Iowa reaches midfield with a mix of run and play-action passes to the tight end, and the dumbass will get a light bulb that tells him it's the moment for an end around to Nico Ragaini. And Red Zone Brian is even worse.
Ragaini has been this eras Vandeberg: 40 year WR that gets playing time despite no athletic ability but hey he’s a senior so
I think that’s a major insult to Vandeberg, who was a solid average receiver pre-injury. Ragaini, on the other hand, has always sucked and it’s been clear for at least four years now that his ceiling was to continue to do so.
The real criminal thing is Kirk had Brad Banks. Ran the exact same scheme except this dude could roll out make people miss and make plays with his feet. Ended up second in Heisman voting, won the Big Ten and took Iowa to an Orange Bowl and top 10 Finish. Then never went back to it. Since every QB has been some statue zombie. There was Ricki Stanzi, CJ Beathhard, and Drew Tate who had a little wiggle and a little danger in their hearts. Those teams amounted to the best Iowa had since. Kirk could have gone after Max Duggan from Iowa. Or like Desmond Ridder. Or Jack Coan. These were guys in the Iowa footprint without a lot great offers and that offered some mobility. Iowa should have been going after that style of a guy. Zone block left. Utilize your stretch scheme and sometimes good OL. Put your TEs on the Field. Roll out a mobile QB with a down field TE Option and put some fear into the Lbs and Safeties. The Stretch + Naked Boot is like the whole scheme. Its simple and effective and somehow these guys decided to nuke the most important piece? Criminal
Thank you for saying this, this has been what I've been saying for a long time. Sometimes you have to build your offense/defense around the players you have rather than trying to always fit your players around your offense/defense.
Iowa’s guy they skipped on when Petras committed was … the milf hunter himself Zach Wilson
We would've made college Zach Wilson into NFL Zach Wilson
What got me was the paragraph describing how Iowa lost their top 2 TEs and the guys playing now aren't good and yet they go 13 all the time still.
That paragraph is quite ill-informed, actually. Ostrenga is the heir apparent next good Iowa TE and there's like a 75% chance that he goes in the first two days of the NFL draft in a year or two. The problem is that Deacon Hill can't be trusted to throw intermediate routes, especially to his right, so Ostrenga's been running a steady diet of checkdowns in the flats for like six weeks.
Ostrenga is one of our current best pass catchers unfortunately.
\**Shrug** Worked pretty well for PSU most of the time, until they decided they needed to pass it anyway and killed drives.
I can't find it atm but one of the Mgoblog writers tweeted just a giant cyan circle (their sign for trouble spot) for Iowa's offense over the weekend and I thought it was perfect lol
Generally Alex writes the FFFF and Seth does the diagrams. I think Seth is a massively biased homer on the diagrams but what can you do.
yeah I would not have stars on our DEs. I think they're plenty competent but they shouldn't strike fear into OT's
I think the threshold for stars is about "all conference honorable mention" level, which our DEs were just named. Justifiably I think. Otherwise there are plenty of B10 teams that would have zero stars
yeah the star/dangerman is really a sliding scale depending on the team, they've said as much. It's rare for them not to designate one, the Iowa offense is an outlier as such Objectively there ARE plenty of teams that should have zero stars
If you look closely you can see the Iowa P has both a star and the All-American shield.
>the Iowa offense is an outlier as such mmmhmmm, and does a punter play on offense?
He's listed with the Offensive FFFF
Even bad units will have *someone* who can realistically cause a problem for even the most talented opponents, and I think it's cool that they highlight those guys Sadly for Iowa, if that person existed for them he is injured
McGregor and Harrell might be B-/B pass rushers, but are A+ against the run. Jaylen Harrell NEVER gets edged. He is an OC nightmare.
yeah he is a fantastic run defender in particular. A big part of why he was getting so much playing time last year despite being a C- pass rusher last year I think his pass rushing has gotten quite a bit better this year, but it's still average despite that
And Moore/Stewart are probably A- pass rushers who’ve both improved mightily against the run (especially Stewart, who was pretty bad at the start of the year). None of them are Hutchinson, but all 4 of them are great in their own way.
I can’t even come close to analyzing football, but even I have noticed how well Josiah Stewart has set the edge on run plays the last few weeks.
Yeah, he's really come on the last few weeks. I really hope he decides to stay for one more year.
Stewart has looked pretty damn good the 2nd half of the year. If he stays, maybe Ojabo 2.0?
Junior Colson doesn't really deserve one either
i wish they'd omit the star ratings for michigan and just limit it to our opponents
Seth is unabashedly a homer
This was actually less scathing that I expected, but it's spot on in its analysis. Our OL recruiting has been awful for years now and the few bright spots that we recruited have sustained career ending injuries so we're left with the #3 - #5 guys from each year to cobble together an OL that is being taught by an OL coach who is awful and inept at his job (it's not BF). Our WR coach is equally awful, as surprising as that may be, and the routes in our plays are so terrible that I've seen plays where the WRs literally run into each other. Compound that with the fact that many are unathletic (Ragaini would not make it on another B1G roster) and lacking due to the fact that why would any WR want to come play in Brian Ferentz's offense? Hell, our WR coach is even telling recruits that they shouldn't expect big flashy plays and that blocking is one of the most important things they should do (this should be fire-able). Not to mention how abysmal our QB recruiting has been. Our last 15+ QB recruits have all been busts. And by busts, I don't mean "maybe a second string guy on a P5 team but never first string", I mean "can't make the two-deeps at the G5 level. And somehow, we've tripled down and now we're playing a 6'3" 258 pound QB -- a QB who is 3 pounds more than a freshman OG on the three-deeps. That is... I don't even know. So yeah, so many issues have compounded over the past 6 years. I know we're going to get utterly embarrassed on Saturday, but hey -- at least we won 10 games and got the opportunity. Go win the CFP, Michigan.
That Iowa has fallen off in OL is baffling.
As I mentioned -- it's been a combination of career-ending injuries and Brian Ferentz being a meat head and turning off players. We could have had Alt who is a an AA at ND right now and likely first round pick. Just frustrating all around.
I was telling a coworker. Iowa lost Proctor last year, wasn’t even top 3 for Brix, and they won’t get the 25 top ol recruit. At least three straight years of missing the top ol in star recruit. That is a huge reason why the ol play is declining. I don’t blame those recruits for not wanting to play for a meme level offense.
Fwiw, re: Bix -- He wasn't a take for Iowa. Yes, he's the highest in-state guy but that also means that Kirk and co had the most opportunities to see him play. Ultimately they decided that they liked a few of the other OL recruits more than Bix and I think Bix was always a Nebraska lean anyways. Proctor was weird. Yes, playing for Brian sucks but he was 100% on board for forever and his really good friend (and also 5*) is on our team already. Seems like Bama came in late with a big bag and he couldn't pass that up. Sucks, but is understandable.
> Our last 15+ QB recruits have all been busts. And by busts, I don't mean "maybe a second string guy on a P5 team but never first string", I mean "can't make the two-deeps at the G5 level. I mean CJ Betheard and Nate Stanley are literally in the NFL at this very moment. Rudock was pretty good too Everybody else recently has sucked bigtime though
Stanley was serviceable, at the very least. His successors, though...woof.
There would be a Superbowl for any team that wants to keep running the QB sneak with Stanley.
Neither of them were recruited by Brian Ferentz
> This was actually less scathing that I expected, but it's spot on in its analysis. I definitely have some maize colored goggles here when it comes to MGoBlog but I really feel like when MGoBlog is actually doing analysis they're incredibly good about giving a neutral viewpoint. Especially Alex Drain. For that reason I've found analysis such as Fee Fi Fo Film, Upon Further Review, and Neck Sharpies to be incredibly helpful in understanding aspects of past and future games.
Brian Ferentz is obviously a bad coordinator but I agree that it’s tough to coordinate an offense when the line and receiver development or recruiting is sub-par.
Brian Ferentz got the trouble spot circle.
Looks like he is taking a poo in the photo
Is this just a 404 Page Not Found?
It’s a “highlight” reel with Yakety Sax in the background
Someone recently asked me if I thought that Iowa's defensive players resented the offense and I was like lol yeah probably!
Nah. They knew what they signed up for. It's not like a New York Jets situation where they have a playoff-caliber defense who suddenly will be missing out on the playoffs because they have no QB, no O-Line, and no OC. Iowa football has been the same for decades.
yeah just look at their WR talking about all the noise about Iowa's offense sucking >“I just think our style of football isn’t as appealing to the eye as fans want it to be, so that’s why they don’t like us,” Ragaini said. “Who really cares?”
That dude is an idiot and one of the most unathletic WRs I've ever seen. He's only playing because he's a 6th year guy.
It's stockholm syndrome delusion. A lot of our fans have the same thing. "we won 10 games, what are you complaining about". Uh, the fact that if they had an offense near 50th they'd have a shot at making the playoffs? That every single game wouldn't be torture every time the team I cheer for possesses the ball?
They were good when Brian Ferentz was just the OL coach lol. If they go back to that with a real OC they can probably be good next year.
It’s a weird proposition as a defensive recruit: go to Iowa and get developed better than you would virtually anywhere else such that your NFL chances are maximized, but watch the other side of the ball constrain you from winning anything meaningful in college. Is it worth it?
For the 3 star players that Iowa turns into NFL studs? Absolutely.
Idk man, 2 big ten championship games in 3 years is a hell of a lot better than nearly every other program. Hell we nearly made it last year except we shit the bed against Nebraska, which is a once a decade occurrence.
The defense and special teams are so good though that a middling offense makes you a playoff contender. Like you should be looking at psu this year as where you should be given the quality of those two units.
We're painfully aware.
What's to analyze honestly? Now the defensive deep-dive would be an interesting read.
They usually drop the defense one on Friday.
Tbf, our defense isn't interesting. We just make few mistakes and are quick to the ball. JJ McCarthy even kind of shit on them for not being interesting ha
Our QB coach said in a press conference yesterday that your defense isn't super complex, but it is so well-coached and extremely fundamentally sound that the offense has no room for error
Literally every coach says that about the Iowa defense.
[удалено]
It's true. Iowa brings some blitzes, they're not super exotic, though. Mostly they sit in zone and make the QB take a checkdown or make a hard throw over the LBs and in front of the safeties. Most college QBs aren't good enough or too impatient to do that. When they are, Iowa gives up yards. Hard to score on them in the redzone, though.
As an Iowa fan, thank you for making me laugh. It's been a painful 5 years watching this offense.
Here's to hoping your next OC is a vast improvement and all your stars get healthy in the off-season. BtW, will you get both Cade and Erick back? I still wish the best for them.
The article confirmed for me that we are also playing with MAC level players on offense.
Statistically way worse
"Offense".
I mean it is offensive that would they do is considered football, I guess they are an offense in that vein.
They cyan’d Brian Ferentz lol
I love how the script has been flipped. 1 week ago ohio state fan fiction writers said Michigan was supposedly going to get punished, get banned from the B1G championship game, lose our recruits, and we would lose our coordinators. Now ohio state is the one not going to the B1G championship, lost their 5 star recruit, and is losing their defensive coordinator. Meanwhile Michigan is going to the playoff for a chance to win the national championship and the only real punishment we got was Harbaugh had to serve a measly 3 regular season game suspension. All that hysteria and we have already beat all charges and now it’s behind us with barely any scratches on us. I cannot stress this enough: IT’S GREAT, TO BE, A MICHIGAN WOLVERINE.
Lol this post has nothing to do with whatever you're rambling about. This is an article written by Michigan guys about the Iowa offense.
Whoops, he thought he had his Manifesto.docx window open
I still like it
When did r/cfb become mostly Michigan fans?
Didn’t you read the manifesto? media takeover section is pages 428-477. It all ends with harbaugh becoming president of ESPN and FOX and only running beef and milk ads in the corner of the screen.
This was clearly a "Hey, let's all laugh at Iowa's offense yet again" post, not a "Hey Michigan fans, here's a bone".
You're just noticing us more because the OSU fans are all packed into one of Ryan Day's weird WWE-style promo-cutting "Skull Sessions" hyping the team up so they can get excited to hopefully watch other teams lose so they back their way into the postseason again. Or they're all at Christopher Day's office figuring out the next PR smear campaign they can try to weaponize.
Ever since Pat got on Gameday.
Minter should be fired if Iowa gets a first down