The Daily Traub

I should be writing a paper right now, but who cares about that when I just had to watch that garbage.  I’ve never seen a team give away so many chances to win a game.  I’m honestly enraged, inconsolable and physically ill all at the same time.  I want to break everything in sight and I feel like I’m going puke.  I hate football.  If Brady Hoke just calls a timeout instead of taking a delay of game on 3rd down on their final drive in the 4th quarter, then Michigan could have kicked a field goal.  If Gibbons makes it, it would have been a two possession game and you would have been incapable of losing.  Instead, you take the delay of game and put your team out of field goal range.  Then on 4th down, you could have taken another delay of game and given your punter five more yards of room, but nope, you burned one of those two timeouts that you had and you should have already used one of them.  Matt Wile then proceeded to punt the ball into the end zone and Penn State went down and scored, covering 80 yards in about 25 seconds.  A prevent defense prevents you from winning; I’ve always said it and I’ll never stop saying it because it is fucking true.  The defense on the final drive for Penn State was soft and gave them all kinds of space, completely inexcusable.  Then on the final drive, you send out Brendan Gibbons to kick a 52-yard field goal when it is well-documented that he can’t kick that far.  Sure he made a 52-yarder once upon a time, but that was probably when he was kicking downhill with a 30 MPH wind at his back.  But even before that, the coaches had Devin Gardner spike the ball ON FIRST DOWN AFTER GETTING OUT OF BOUNDS.  The clock literally could not run, so hey lets burn a down because we didn’t talk about what to do if we actually gained a decent amount of yards.  Whatever.  Why not send Matt Wile to kick the 52-yarder?  He’s got the big leg, sure maybe he misses it, but it was your best option.  Brendan Gibbons kick was at least 4 yards short, Wile would have at least gotten the ball there.  The offensive playcalling was horrendous all game, minus the two Funchess touchdowns and the ONE drive that gave Michigan a 27-24 lead.  Nearly everything was ultra conservative, and it only got worse in overtime.  The run game wasn’t working with Fitzgerald Toussaint, so why bother?  Toussaint had 27 carries for 27 yards.  Anyone could have done that.  Literally anyone.  Sure, I get in overtime the coaches want to be conservative, especially because you had a chance to win with two of the possessions, but why not just run with Gardner and try to score?  Oh, because you wanted to put it in your kicker’s hands?  Clearly Gibbons couldn’t handle the pressure.  Sure one of the kicks was blocked, but he hooked a 30-yarder that would have won the game.  It was a chip shot and he shanked it, great to see that freshman year Gibbons still lives in there somewhere and he picked a perfect time to return too.  Devin Gardner was unstoppable on the run all game, so why not just run quarterback draws out of the shotgun until you get into the end zone?  Too logical?  The defense did their job in overtime, it wasn’t their fault, by the time the fourth overtime came around the game was already over.  All momentum was lost and Michigan was just waiting to lose.  Nope, this game wasn’t on the defense, this game was on the coaching staff.  Hoke had horrible clock management and Al Borges went full retard with his play calling.  Yeah, you’re scared that Gardner may turnover the ball, but fuck it, nothing else was working.  They were the luckiest undefeated team that I’ve ever seen and they almost kept it going.  Hell, Penn State tried to give them the game multiple times but Michigan was determined to give it away.  Their offensive line was pathetic and Taylor Lewan going down was the icing on the cake of death.  Chris Bryant was awful and was replaced by Joey Burzynski who did marginally better, which in case you were wondering what is marginally better than awful, it’s somewhere between very bad and bad, I haven’t decided.  Kyle Kalis and Erik Magnuson were awful on the right side of the line and with no blocking, the offense couldn’t do anything.  I’m honestly disgusted with what I just watched.  It was pathetic.  I really don’t want to blame Greg Mattison for anything because he’s been able to do so much with so little talent, but that final drive was horrific.  80 yards in 25 seconds, with no timeouts.  Let that sink in for a second.  How the fuck does that happen????  The defense played well except for that drive.  They haven’t been the issue all season and still weren’t the issue tonight because the game should have been over.  Michigan should have been up 10 with 50 seconds left and they should have been laughing on the sideline about how they managed to escape yet again.  The special teams, offense and coaching killed the team.  This team didn’t deserve to win, didn’t deserve to be undefeated and now the season is probably over.  The team that showed up in Happy Valley will get destroyed by Ohio State, Northwestern, Nebraska and probably even Michigan State.  Hell, Indiana will give them some problems at home next week based on what I just watched.  I don’t see this team improving at all right now, and if it weren’t for the defense, this team is 2-3, no way around it.  Without fixing the offensive playcalling and the offensive line, this team will continue to go nowhere fast.  If it weren’t for Devin Gardner, despite his three turnovers, this team gets housed tonight.  So all you morons calling for Shane Morris to play, go back to your shanties.  If you think a true freshman quarterback that has played less than a quarter of college football can do better than Devin Gardner, then I’ve got a pretty sweet bridge I can sell you.  If Shane Morris had been in the game with the way that offensive line blocked, he would have been sacked at least a dozen times.  Gardner gained 121 yards on the ground and even though he had 3 turnovers, still accounted for 3 passing touchdowns and 240 yards through the air.  As bad as he was in the first half, his second half performance showed exactly why he is the starting quarterback.  And in case you were wondering, no I don’t care that that was one giant paragraph and that there are grammatical errors everywhere.

I haven’t been this furious over a game in a long time.  That was embarrassing, just flat out embarrassing, that Penn State team isn’t any good.  They lost to Central Florida and got housed by Indiana.  I mean what the hell just happened.  No, I’m not going to sit here and call for Brady Hoke’s job, he’s done plenty to earn job security, even though he had some horrible gaffes tonight.  I mean holy shit in two crucial situations, Michigan took a delay of game.  It took you out of field goal range in the 4th quarter and in the 4th OT it put you in 3rd and 15 and forced you to kick a field goal.  Brady Hoke doesn’t have a headset on, so why they hell isn’t he watching the play clock to call timeout if it is going to run out.  Seriously though, completely inexcusable.  Also, Hoke better tell Al Borges to figure out a new game plan because I am calling for Borges’ job.  Borges playcalling was utterly pathetic and the ultra conservative/playing not to lose gameplan is a joke.  I know Borges is Hoke’s boy and all, but he has the ability to supercede Borges and tell him to quit playing with his butt hole while he calls dive plays up the middle with an offensive line that can’t block and a runningback that couldn’t find a hole with two hands and a map.  I mean what the hell was the thought process.  “Let’s keep running with an unbalanced offensive line even though our best offensive lineman, and perhaps the best left tackle in the country is hurt.”  “Hey, let’s throw the ball out of an unbalanced offensive line with a tight end lined up at left tackle.”  “OMG we haven’t tried this before, let’s line up in an unbalanced offensive line and run to the weak side even though there’s only a tight end and a guard who can’t block out there trying to make a hole for Toussaint.”  Seriously?  Not a single one of those playcalls was rational or intelligent.  It doesn’t take a football coach to know that either.  Conservative playcalling is not how you win games and that’s not how championships are won.  Playing not to lose is not how things should be done under any circumstances.  Borges should go home and set his playbook on fire along with whatever game plan he designed for tonight.  If this keeps up, he deserves to be fired; hell he deserves to fired right now.  The playcalling was completely and utterly inexcusable.  Michigan was outcoached, plain and simple.

Maybe I’ll provide some actual analysis on the game instead of just a rant later this week, maybe not but I leave you with two videos.  In the immortal words of Herm Edwards:

My advice for Al Borges right now:

I hate Penn State.  And don’t ever think for a second that this rant means that I won’t support this team or this school.  I will bleed maize and blue until I die.