GAME Washington @ Michigan | 5pm PDT | ABC

It could be situational. Washington's (perhaps only) strength is their secondary. Since Michigan didn't need to pass, they may have avoided playing to Washington's strength

McNamara hasn't been able to pass on any team but Rutgers. If this is strategic -- UM is masterful, as it has been keeping this going for the past 6 games. :)
 
If you are in the group saying - UM isn't passing because they don't want it on film, that is
assinine.
McNamara has had one really good game against Rutgers. The rest of his 5 games he played -- he has completed around 50% of his passes for a whopping 3 td's.

He is the ultimate game manager, which is pathetic in year 7 for Harbaugh.
Not QUITE a fair assessment. Cade has started in 4 games total. In the other mentioned games he was coming in during garbage time or coming in for Milton who got hurt against Wisconsin and only had 7 pass attempts.

His first start was Rutgers (2020)
27 of 36 (75%) 260 yards and 4 TDs

Penn State (2020)
12 of 25 (48%) 91 yards 0 TDS (yuck)

Western Michigan
9 of 11 (81%) 136 yards and 2 TDS

Washington
7 of 15 (46%) 44 yards and 0 TDs

Don't know how this plays out once we hit any big name teams. And my guess is that we won't know after the next two games either. But his total completion percentages for 2020 and 2021 are over 60%. He's thrown 2TD's this year in two games and threw 5 last year in the limited playing time he had. Not really a terrible stat; especially considering he's also never thrown a pick.


I guess we'll find out at some point. But I think Harbaugh wants a game manager; which is why JJ isn't in. So I still do think part of this is by design.
 
McNamara hasn't been able to pass on any team but Rutgers. If this is strategic -- UM is masterful, as it has been keeping this going for the past 6 games. :)
He threw two TD's and completed 81% of his passes against Western. I'm not saying that to brag, but you're factually wrong. He's started in 4 games and had good, if not great, passing games against the weaker teams, had one really terrible game against PSU last year (but our whole team was also garbage) and then Washington they didn't really use him at all; so it's hard to judge. They ran in almost all passing downs.

Again, I'm saying this knowing full well that you're PROBABLY RIGHT. And cade will hit good teams, suck balls and the rest is known history. But what I am saying is that I would have said the same thing prior to the season to anyone suggesting our RB's would be this good (so far) this year, and yet here we are.

The reality is that we haven't seen him pass this year. He's thrown a few good balls, had a bunch of easy balls dropped by WRs, missed a few throws but nothing has been egregious. They just haven't called pass plays in response to the running game. So I think the question still looms; what happens when we inevitably get behind and have to pass? I think it's also fair to assume this will be the strategy (run the ball) as long as it's working.
 
last point, I swear.

I think the thing I'm still holding out hope for is that if we are able to get just an average passing attack going, combined with our running success, that could actually be quite lethal. And that's kinda why I'm still hopeful.
 
He threw two TD's and completed 81% of his passes against Western. I'm not saying that to brag, but you're factually wrong. He's started in 4 games and had good, if not great, passing games against the weaker teams, had one really terrible game against PSU last year (but our whole team was also garbage) and then Washington they didn't really use him at all; so it's hard to judge. They ran in almost all passing downs.

Again, I'm saying this knowing full well that you're PROBABLY RIGHT. And cade will hit good teams, suck balls and the rest is known history. But what I am saying is that I would have said the same thing prior to the season to anyone suggesting our RB's would be this good (so far) this year, and yet here we are.

The reality is that we haven't seen him pass this year. He's thrown a few good balls, had a bunch of easy balls dropped by WRs, missed a few throws but nothing has been egregious. They just haven't called pass plays in response to the running game. So I think the question still looms; what happens when we inevitably get behind and have to pass? I think it's also fair to assume this will be the strategy (run the ball) as long as it's working.

He threw the ball 11 times and it was against a MAC team. Reality is -- if you remove his game against Rutgers -- in the other 5 games he has played in, he has completed 52% of his passes. If you only count the P5 games outside of Rutgers -- he has completed 46% of his passes in those 4 games.

Sadly -- it doesn't help that UM's WR group is also garbage. How bad they are compared to their rival -- UM's best WR by far was Ronnie Bell and he wouldn't even sniff the field if he played on OSU. OSU's 4th WR is the #1 WR and #3 overall nationally in 2020 recruit Julian Fleming, their #5 WR is Egbuka, who was the #1 WR and #9 nationally recruit overall in 2021. Their 6th WR is Marvin Harrison Jr.
 
He threw the ball 11 times and it was against a MAC team. Reality is -- if you remove his game against Rutgers -- in the other 5 games he has played in, he has completed 52% of his passes. If you only count the P5 games outside of Rutgers -- he has completed 46% of his passes in those 4 games.

Sadly -- it doesn't help that UM's WR group is also garbage. How bad they are compared to their rival -- UM's best WR by far was Ronnie Bell and he wouldn't even sniff the field if he played on OSU. OSU's 4th WR is the #1 WR and #3 overall nationally in 2020 recruit Julian Fleming, their #5 WR is Egbuka, who was the #1 WR and #9 nationally recruit overall in 2021. Their 6th WR is Marvin Harrison Jr.
That's a bit like me saying, "if you remove the losses, Jim Harbaugh is a great coach". You can't just remove 1/4 of the games he's played in because it doesn't fit your narrative.

OSU has some of the best WR's in the nation...not sure what the point was there? I think Michigan has enough capable talent still to do just fine in the passing game. AJ Henning, Roman Wilson, and Cornelius Johnson are all 4 star players coming out of HS and Daylen Baldwin was one of the top WR JUCO prospects this year. But the next two recruiting classes are going to need to be filled with WR's because we lack a ton of depth.

What would help that? Winning. It also didn't help that we lost Xavier Worthy because the school wouldn't let him in academically. That is a big blow to this season in particular.

I suspect you'll see us rely on passing to TE's a lot this year as the season moves forward.
 
That's a bit like me saying, "if you remove the losses, Jim Harbaugh is a great coach". You can't just remove 1/4 of the games he's played in because it doesn't fit your narrative.

OSU has some of the best WR's in the nation...not sure what the point was there? I think Michigan has enough capable talent still to do just fine in the passing game. AJ Henning, Roman Wilson, and Cornelius Johnson are all 4 star players coming out of HS and Daylen Baldwin was one of the top WR JUCO prospects this year. But the next two recruiting classes are going to need to be filled with WR's because we lack a ton of depth.

What would help that? Winning. It also didn't help that we lost Xavier Worthy because the school wouldn't let him in academically. That is a big blow to this season in particular.

I suspect you'll see us rely on passing to TE's a lot this year as the season moves forward.
The narrative is crystal clear. Cade can't throw the ball against any competent defense -- whether it be, UM doesn't have WR's getting open or he simply isn't good remains to be seen. That being said -- it won't change this year, unless some unseen WR breaks out. And Baldwin wasn't a JUCO guy -- UM doesn't sign JUCO guys. He is a grad transfer.

And which TE are they going to rely on? Erik All? I still laugh at the commentary before he played his first game -- they talked about how he caught everything in sight. My man has 16 catches in 3 years and probably has 20 drops.
 
The narrative is crystal clear. Cade can't throw the ball against any competent defense -- whether it be, UM doesn't have WR's getting open or he simply isn't good remains to be seen. That being said -- it won't change this year, unless some unseen WR breaks out. And Baldwin wasn't a JUCO guy -- UM doesn't sign JUCO guys. He is a grad transfer.

And which TE are they going to rely on? Erik All? I still laugh at the commentary before he played his first game -- they talked about how he caught everything in sight. My man has 16 catches in 3 years and probably has 20 drops.
We didn’t run pass plays. Hard to say stuff like “can’t get WRs open” when you ran a total of 15 pass plays the entire game.

I don’t think we can make a judgment until pass plays are tried in any significant quantity and they fail.
 
We didn’t run pass plays. Hard to say stuff like “can’t get WRs open” when you ran a total of 15 pass plays the entire game.

I don’t think we can make a judgment until pass plays are tried in any significant quantity and they fail.
Did Michigan take down the “those who stay will be champions” signs and put up “we can’t make a judgement until…” signs because that seems to be the battle cry for the last decade.
 
Not a Harbaugh fan by any means, but I don't get the "He ran the ball because they can't pass" schtick.

In the Big 10 you HAVE to be able to run the ball. It's still a 3 yds and a cloud of dust conference.
If you're having success running the ball you stick with it as opposed to risking an INT putting it in the air. You also get your team plenty of practice on the run game (against an actual opponent) as you're gonna need it for Wisconsin, Penn St, and Ohio St for sure and a couple others.
Running well is ball control. It's game control.

You can be sure Ryan Day wishes tOSU could have run the ball better against Oregon.

Rushing
Oregon: 269
Ohio St: 128

Passing
Oregon: 236
Ohio St: 484

Oregon 35-28
 
Not a Harbaugh fan by any means, but I don't get the "He ran the ball because they can't pass" schtick.

In the Big 10 you HAVE to be able to run the ball. It's still a 3 yds and a cloud of dust conference.
If you're having success running the ball you stick with it as opposed to risking an INT putting it in the air. You also get your team plenty of practice on the run game (against an actual opponent) as you're gonna need it for Wisconsin, Penn St, and Ohio St for sure and a couple others.
Running well is ball control. It's game control.

You can be sure Ryan Day wishes tOSU could have run the ball better against Oregon.

Rushing
Oregon: 269
Ohio St: 128

Passing
Oregon: 236
Ohio St: 484

Oregon 35-28
It's a fair assumption off the last 6 years; but on the other hand we haven't been able to run like this in the past either. So at least that's different. So I don't think it's fair to assume the passing sucks because the running was excellent and they just didn't do it. If we hit opponents and can't run or pass, then sure let's evaluate then. I don't think we'll really know how this team passes until we hit Wisconsin.
 
It's a fair assumption off the last 6 years; but on the other hand we haven't been able to run like this in the past either. So at least that's different. So I don't think it's fair to assume the passing sucks because the running was excellent and they just didn't do it. If we hit opponents and can't pass, then sure let's evaluate then. I don't think we'll really know how this team passes until we hit Wisconsin.
I think it’s fair to assume you can’t pass based on the last 6 years where you had NFL wide receivers and still couldn’t pass efficiently. Harbaugh is well past the benefit of the doubt territory.
 
I think it’s fair to assume you can’t pass based on the last 6 years where you had NFL wide receivers and still couldn’t pass efficiently. Harbaugh is well past the benefit of the doubt territory.
I still can't get over how he wasted Nico.
 
It's a fair assumption off the last 6 years; but on the other hand we haven't been able to run like this in the past either. So at least that's different. So I don't think it's fair to assume the passing sucks because the running was excellent and they just didn't do it. If we hit opponents and can't run or pass, then sure let's evaluate then. I don't think we'll really know how this team passes until we hit Wisconsin.

Never get away from something that's working. That would be dumb.

Running the ball in practice (against your own team) doesn't get you near as much experience or film data as doing it against an opponent.
 
We didn’t run pass plays. Hard to say stuff like “can’t get WRs open” when you ran a total of 15 pass plays the entire game.

I don’t think we can make a judgment until pass plays are tried in any significant quantity and they fail.

Cade threw 15 times for 44 yards. 33 yards came on one underthrown ball where the WR made the adjustment to stop the route. He had 11 yards passing on his other 14 attempts.

The last P5 program he faced before Washington was PSU. He was 12 for 25 and 91 yards.

So his last 2 games against P5 defenses, he is 19 for 40 for 133 yards and 0 TDs.


He reminds me of worse version of Shea Patterson. That's what I call him -- Shea Lite.
 
It's a fair assumption off the last 6 years; but on the other hand we haven't been able to run like this in the past either. So at least that's different. So I don't think it's fair to assume the passing sucks because the running was excellent and they just didn't do it. If we hit opponents and can't run or pass, then sure let's evaluate then. I don't think we'll really know how this team passes until we hit Wisconsin.
"You rang?" -Wisconsin defense

Not totally wrong.
 
Cade threw 15 times for 44 yards. 33 yards came on one underthrown ball where the WR made the adjustment to stop the route. He had 11 yards passing on his other 14 attempts.

The last P5 program he faced before Washington was PSU. He was 12 for 25 and 91 yards.

So his last 2 games against P5 defenses, he is 19 for 40 for 133 yards and 0 TDs.


He reminds me of worse version of Shea Patterson. That's what I call him -- Shea Lite.
Right. They didn’t throw over the middle. Most of the throws were to RBs; functionally acting as runs, hence the small yardage numbers.

your point only works if we attempted downfield passes and they weren’t hit.
 
Right. They didn’t throw over the middle. Most of the throws were to RBs; functionally acting as runs, hence the small yardage numbers.

your point only works if we attempted downfield passes and they weren’t hit.

Oh -- so UM's game plan was to run the ball, draw the safeties closer to the line of scrimmage and then throw short. Does that make sense? You run the ball to draw the safeties closer to the line of scrimmage to run play action and take shots downfield. Not make it easier on the safeties to help out in both the run and the pass.

And if most of the throws were to RB's and screen passes -- how does he complete only 7 of 15 passes? Is that the same thing that happened when Cade faced Penn State and was 12-25 for 91 yards? He is also 4-10 combined for 70 yards against Wisconsin and Minnesota. Or is every game Cade starts against teams with an ounce of talent on defense, is the game plan to throw short and complete less than 50% of those short throws?

People see what he did against Rutgers and seem to forget, IT WAS RUTGERS. He has looked like absolute horseshit every game since. He is making UM fans miss Shea Patterson:dhd:
 
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