Notre Dame vs. Michigan

[Peake]

Denard Robinson has been throwing the ball extremly well. I don't know after two weeks if you can make the claim he can't beat you with his arm, because he has thrown imo one bad ball all season long (one that should have been picked in the 3rd qt). He also put one on the money in the 4th to Roundtree that should have been a TD. No one is going to shut him down. He is not Tate Forcier with limited athletic ability. He will get out of tackles 99% of QB's would take a sack. As fast as OSU fans want to say TP is, Denards fast is on a different level. No way TP is a 4.3 whatever if Denard is a 4.3 whatever. Different level of fast. Anyways.

I will say this fo ND. They imo should not lose another game this season. SHOULD is the big word. They under use Floyd. You have the best WR in the country you must throw to him once a down imo. The skilled players for ND are as good as any in the country. ANY. Their defensive line is better then 90% in cfb. The NG is an animal and Ethan Johnson will be a 1st round pick. The stud soph LB is also very good. THe secondary is meh though. THere is no doubt in my mind that Coach Kelley will win 9-10 games this season.

When Crist went out, Michigan should have been up 35-7 or so when he came back. This shouldn't have even been a game after he went out. Michigan missed a lot of opportunities and this will come back to get them if they don't take advantage of certain situations like the one they saw Saturday. I will also say that aside from two drives with Crist in, I didn't really think they were going to dominate us. To say you would have won had Crist stayed in is not accurate, your chances would have went up, but not garuntee you win.

This Big Ten teams will eat up Denard thought. Really. There is one team with a better DLine then ND in the Big Ten and its OSU. The Big Ten defenses didn't kill athletically limited Tate Forcier last season yet they will kill Denard. They have to catch him first. Don't forget the UM offensive line is much improved. They have allowed 1 sack in two games thus far.

I also agree fully with the fact UM started 4-0 then sank. I don't get that same feeling at this point, but I am very cautiously optomistic. I know we will lose some games, and we are not winning a NC, but I am not seeing us tank like last season either imo.

ND fans, you gotta give it to James Rogers on Floyd. Everyone kept saying what will JT Flord do against Floyd. Then UM switched Rogers to Floyd. Rogers is not a great DB by any means, but he is big 6'2, and a very good athlete (10.6 track state champ and 6'10 high jump state champ). It was a good move imo.

Those are my thoughts.

[The Flying Dutchman]

Pretty fair Peake. You are a bit higher on our DL than I am. As far as ND winning 9 or 10 games, they will have to keep Crist healthy. ND's defense spent to much time on the field they forced 10 punts but still gave up a ton of yards. You are right about Floyd he has been underused so far. For Mich. their kicking game almost cost them the game, it was terrible. Robinson was great. He is a terrific athlete, I would have liked to have seen ND play their corners a little tighter but who knows. Michigan should do ok if their defense can get off the field against the likes of Iowa, Wisc. and OSU and of course keeping Robinson healthy also.

[LICKING COUNTY FAN]

Michigan plays down to the level of their compt. which make this game a lot closer than it should have been.

[Peake]

I disagree. Notre Dame would be the 3rd best team in the Big Ten imo.

Crist, Floyd, Rudolph, T. Robinson, Eethan Johnson, the NG, Monte te'o?, all would be all big ten players imo and the Allen would not be far behind.

Kelley is a great coach and will coach this team up. They are a good team and will win a lot of games imo.

[seofan_via_dublin]

Peake, you're drunk.

[marshallman]

TP did get timed at 4.35 with the laser timer and is the second fastest player on the whole team in the 40. Did the sanctions come out yet on Michigan?

[1987chieftains]

Peake, you're drunk.

and not sharing!

[fightingtigers45]

I wish Robinson was a Gator.

Urban went after him hard but he chose Michigan instead considering the fact that Florida already had Tebow and Brantley.

[Orestes]

Denard Robinson has been throwing the ball extremly well. I don't know after two weeks if you can make the claim he can't beat you with his arm, because he has thrown imo one bad ball all season long (one that should have been picked in the 3rd qt). He also put one on the money in the 4th to Roundtree that should have been a TD. No one is going to shut him down. He is not Tate Forcier with limited athletic ability. He will get out of tackles 99% of QB's would take a sack. As fast as OSU fans want to say TP is, Denards fast is on a different level. No way TP is a 4.3 whatever if Denard is a 4.3 whatever. Different level of fast. Anyways.

Well, this is from a Canes fan that was at the game Saturday:

We couldn't handle Terrelle Pryor and his ability to extend plays with his legs killed us - just like I thought it might. That cat rushed for over a hundred yards on us. My thoughts on Pryor are these: 1. He's a heck of a lot bigger in person than he might seem on TV. He's got to be 240-250lbs. Dude is huge. 2. Pryor has such long legs that he just glides out there on the field. He's a really, really fluid runner and he's deceptively fast. I remember watching him on TV in other games and not thinking that he looked all that fast.....Then you see him in person and the dude's strides are so long that he glides past people (fast) and makes it look effortless. When you see him up close, you really get an appreciation for how good an athlete he is. Pryor is actually not that great of a short-to-intermediate passer, but his raw athletic ability is tremendous and the frustrating thing about watching him in person is that he makes some of his best plays with his legs when you've made some of your best defensive plays against him. You have got to wrap this dude up and drive him to the ground. If you try to "block" him down - just put a shoulder or a forearm into him and hope he falls down like we did a couple times, you're screwed. He's going to either stiff arm you aside and keep gliding, side-step the hit entirely, or bounce off the contact and keep gliding for more yards. You gotta be a good fundamental tackler against this dude cause when you don't wrap up, that's when he goes into "video game" mode and starts making crazy plays with his legs.

Also, more to bigtimehitter, Pryor was involved in 47 plays against Miami. He had 346 total yards and 2 TDs. That is 7.36 yards per attempt and 1 TD for every 23.5 attempts.

Robinson was involved in 68 plays against ND. He had 502 yards and 3 TDs. That is 7.38 yards per attempt and 1 TD for every 22.666 attempt.

Very similar performances. OSU just uses other players and is much more diverse. Additionally, and this goes more to play design, OSU protects Pryor.

Oh, and Miami is a superior defense. It's really not that close. Finally, Miami knew OSU was going to run Pryor in the 4th quarter, and they still couldn't stop it. Much like ND against Robinson.

Let's finally note, some OSU fans are still banging on Pryor for his performance against Miami. Sometimes expectations and raw numbers influence our reactions.

[Peake]

Dubs, you are just jealous lol.

Marshall and orestes---agree but disagree. If Robinson were behind the OSU line, he would have ran for 400 yards lol. I know TP is fast, but he is VY fast. Long strides, big, strong. Robinson is Vick fast. He can change direction and still maintain top speed. Kid runs in the 10.2's in the 100, I still maintain there is a different level of speed between the 2. TP is good don't get me wrong, but we are talking a third year starter v a 1st year starter. TP is very good, no disrespect meant.

tigers45, He didn't go to Florida because they recruited him as a DB. They told him no way he plays QB, hince why he came to UM. God could you imagine him at Florida, wow.

[mister b]

UM will be 5-0 going into the MSU game, which should be a good test for Robinson.

RR needs to spend the next 3 games getting more folks involved in carrying the ball and taking the load off Robinson as primary ball carrier. Until this happens, UM will go only as far as Robinson can carry them.

[Peake]

Mister B,

I agree 100%. I think you will see Devin Gardner start getting thrown in here and there, and these next two weeks you will see more Mike Cox and Ftiz Toussiant getting carries. Cox was #1 coming out of spring but then couldn't hold onto the ball in the fall and has fallen a bit, and Fitzy was going to be the starter but hurt his knee. People expect Fitzy to be the future. HE is healthy this week is what I am hearing. I expect to see 5 different backs touch the ball this game. Shaw is a slot and I don't know why he hasn't moved yet, and Smith lost a step coming off ACL surgery in the offseason. Smith will get it back about midway is my guess. Also watchout for true freshmen Stephan Hopkins. He is a big back who scored the first td against ND, he will get carries.

My guess is by MSU if healtyh you will see Fitzy, Smith, and Hopkins getting primary carries.

[noreply66]

The one man show will not last