Undone

Having lost to Minnesota doesn't change anything in relation to us still controlling our destiny in the West. Just makes it way harder to win it. The Gophers play Michigan tonight and then Ohio State towards the end of the year. So they'll start racking up the losses there. But Wisconsin gets the easy route by drawing Rutgers & Indiana for their cross divisional game. The other one is Ohio State, but they're so lucky on Rutgers & Indiana.

As to the discussion here about "not calling so many pass plays" on a given drive. I had said the same thing coming into this one but it was in the context of the pass blocking being so bad. I'll probably rewatch the game on the 25 minute whistle-to-whistle video when it comes out on YouTube and check again, but it seemed like pass protection was better in this one. There was a play where the announcers called out Benhart for getting beat in pass pro, but he at least worked the guy to the outside instead of letting him go inside. Haarberg showed great poise by stepping into it and getting outside, Coleman is open...and he just throws a bad pass that could have been a good completion. Seemed like there was a lot of that last night that was on the QB. I'm seeing more of the bigger picture on how much Ricky H is struggling with his throwing after seeing more of him. I thought Satterfield actually called a good game. And also, don't forget about how we're missing Rahmir & Gabe.

I'm starting to look at the QB conversation roughly like this: you look at his total yards, and then you look at decision making & turnovers. It doesn't probably matter that much whether his total yards come off of passing or running. Haarberg had 236 yards of total offense, which was decent. But he threw a pick, and then threw into traffic multiple times where those passes could have also been intercepted. He also threw a couple key passes just off target enough to where the receivers couldn't get to it on key plays. On a different night where the defense wasn't on the top of their game, we probably lose with the game he played. Definitely has to be better than what he did last night.

I missed that, thanks.

Listening to Jimari Butler's post game interview and his/the team's mentality around that Sunday practice after the Michigan game, he said it was one of the hardest practices he'd ever had. And that there was no pushback to go out and work hard that day. Damn. I'm excited about Rhule's ability to put together a physical, hard working team.

Can't accuse our staff of being too conservative on offense in this one. They asked Haarberg to throw 24 times. The three passes right before halftime were bad calls, but Satterfield called a game that was trying to take some shots down the field, nothing wrong with that.

Our coaches absolutely have to dig deep to eliminate the false starts. Figure out where the root cause is, whatever it might be. I will say, Satterfield dialed up the jet sweep to Kemp on a couple plays where we needed it so badly. There's good stuff happening, but we still look like we're playing so scared to fail on offense. Scattered thoughts here obviously...but again, just so criminal to not get the ball to Fidone more. The guy is truly a freak of nature out there. His ceiling is extremely high.

Totally agree, dude. Ricky Haarberg gets props for that lob to Washington out of our own end zone on the first drive. Huge play there. Then he found Bullock on a key pass play also. But by and large he was very bad throwing the ball tonight. He missed Coleman & Fidone on two key plays where both of those guys get themselves open and it should have been completions. Missing the field goal was awful. And not having Ervin & Rahmir hurt us in this one. Can't forget about that when we look at some of the 4th quarter stuff. The coaching decisions to throw late in the 2nd quarter...like seriously what in the actual f***. I was beside myself with frustration. Honestly, Altmeyer is an absolutely terrible QB. Blackshirts get so much credit in this one, especially the goal line stand on their first drive...but a better QB for them definitely could have wound up giving us the 'L' in this game because of our offensive ineptitude. He skipped multiple passes off the turf. Our false starts; can't even get my head around how pathetic it is.

Yep. I think the other thing is our offensive coordinator getting a sense of when the other team is consistently breathing down our neck with heavy blitzes on early downs and not calling drop-back passes on those downs. Just don't put the line in that situation more than you have to where they have to pass protect on slow-developing pass plays. I hope that against Illinois we'll run outside early in the game and just see what happens.

It's nice to see other people pointing out that there's at least some improvement on the O line. I agree with the assessment, and Raiola absolutely gets the credit there for me. I said before the season began that I felt like if he was a good coach, some improvement would be seen. I didn't feel like he should get to hide behind all that many excuses anybody could come up with for him. But the point is, I think the group is improved. And that's really encouraging. If we can have several more games where we crack 200 yards rushing and get to a bowl I don't think there'd be much rationale whatsoever in saying the guy should be fired. There are 7 more games to play.

Anthony Grant with 125 yards. 'Skers win 27-24.

I took it to mean something more in the middle of those two thing you mentioned - an advantage over the other Teams in the West not named Wisconsin. And I think it still could be, except of course now the divisions will change and even if we do get to that place where we were with Bo and the Illinois' & Minnesota's were more automatic wind each year, it may not mean as much to our final record.

True. On the first one, Satterfield and the team put together what was probably the best looking drive of the game. Great calls, great execution, and we get down to their 1 yard line...and then we false start to setup the passing down on 2nd & goal from the 6. I know we've beaten that one to death. The decision to throw when & where he did then on that play was terrible...but it was his left guard that put him in that position in the first place. Of course, he still executed the passing play horribly.

Totally agree with this as well. And also the kid worked really hard at becoming a leader on the team in the offseason and is a newcomer; I feel bad for him. Hope he gets to play more with a fully healthy ankle and we can all see what he's possibly capable of.

I think you're right, and I'm also really hoping it's right. I think this overall scheme they're looking for does way more damage with the "throw-first" guy. And also, I don't think you have a whole lot of luck getting the blue chip receivers in that 6'1" - 6'-4" range if you don't have the good passer on the roster to begin with. If we head this direction, I think it'll work well for us and I can actually see the offensive statistical progression that Ern showed from Temple & Baylor playing out here. Really do.

Yeah, I get that. Not sure if Kaelin is completely done growing or not, he's listed some places at 6'2" and others at 6'3". He does occasionally carry the ball, so I could still see him excelling in this exact scheme - but the play mix of QB runs would probably go down. He's of course nowhere near as fast as Sims & Haarberg though. Which for me would probably be perfect. The kid is undeniably a good passer.

You mean in terms of his size or did you mean something else? I think he's a really solid recruit.

I think this does say a lot about who this guy is at turning programs around. If the slow, plodding offense is what he actually sees the team running by 2026, then they'll probably continue to prioritize QB's in recruiting that are physical and run extremely well. This again limits the kind of arm talent you can bring in. But, we'll see. Biggest concern for the foreseeable future might be Tony White leaving for greener pastures, honestly. Guy is absolutely a great coach.

I really liked that offense. In fact, I'm not sure there was anything I didn't like about it. I can't remember exactly, but I'm thinking one big difference there would be that our 2012 offense had a much higher tempo. It does make you wonder whether Rhule would go so slow even if he was working with significantly better players.

Not trying to bite your head off here at all, but those things are so obvious that they're almost not worth mentioning, are they? You basically said "they want better players and they want everything to be more effective." Like, even Georgia & Michigan might say that. Any team probably could and would. But I'm sure you're right on "power run" at a minimum. So yeah...I doubt they want to win every game 14-13 and I doubt they'd be disappointed or anything if they were routinely winning games 42-13 where big, explosive plays put points on the board, right? I thought maybe Lorewarn was insinuating that even the scheme itself might be something they'd like to change in future seasons if they could. Here's what I don't really love: I don't really love the idea that there'd be no variability to the slow, plodding offense. If you have a bad defensive game, you're screwed. I understand that Rhule wants to rest the defense and wants to wear the other team down by early in the 4th quarter and I think those things are good. My bigger concern with what I've seen so far is Satterfield just being a bit too predictable.

What would you surmise their ideal offensive scheme is? Genuinely asking.

Totally agree with this. The design and intent is good - use simple, heavy sets to work your way into 3rd & short and control your opponent. And this was usually not Frost's approach (at least not in the first couple years as much, maybe it was towards the end). So I definitely support doing something different under Rhule, going a different route is great. It's just a question of whether it's really working. And if it isn't, maybe need to mix it up in some way. I'm assuming you'd probably agree though that yards per play is the more equalizing metric - and then you couple it with stats on 3rd down conversions. I'm not sure if the stats get tracked for distance on 3rd down on average or not. But that was 'Husk's good point - we're probably not getting into 3rd & short enough, and that's kind of this offense's goal.

And if you had read the roughly 8 previous posts, you'd notice that the discussion wasn't about that at all.

No, that's good stuff. If I'm wrong on stats I'm not going to argue with anybody. I thought Minnesota played us fairly well on D in that game just with the eyeball test, but I do remember the announcers saying that Fleck usually loses when his opponent puts up more than 150 yards on the ground. Since I mentioned Northern Illinois, I guess on the flip side the big thing in that game was that we were even in the turnover margin in that one. Obviously makes a huge difference. Not the case in the Minnesota game (we were -3).