Mailbag question: About the Iowa Game

Posted at 8:00am — 10/24/2010

Mailbag question: About the Iowa Game

1) The play clock had clearly gone to zero before the ball was snapped on the blocked field goal attempt. How could the officials miss this? Why didn’t the U-M coaches call a time out to avoid rushing a fragile kicking team?

2) The hit that injured Denard Robinson was clearly intended to harm him. The Iowa player launched himself into the air after another Iowa player had already initiated contact near the side-line. The airborne player then chose to target his shoulder to Denard’s shoulder. I thought he should have been ejected. To me it was way more than a cheap shot, it was a deliberate attempt to harm our best player. I won’t say what I would have done were I the head coach. but an “eye for an eye …..”.

3) Why are our receivers typically closely guarded by the opposition but our defenders are usually far away? We’ are only rushing 3 players most of the time. So we should have up to eight players to defend the pass and be near the other team’s receivers. At the very least we should be tackling them as soon as they catch the ball. However, time after time they catch the ball and have plenty of time to check where our defenders are located and advance the ball.

Thanks!

Annarboral

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Thanks for the questions.

1) Officials must have felt the snap was in time. We must remember that a lot of times the refs do give the teams the benefit of the doubt. The refs have to look up at the clock, they do not have a screen that shows the play and the play clock together and perfectly judge when the ball is snapped. So a crew may sometimes miss the clock hitting zero exactly at that split second. This happens every week if enough football is watched.

This is not a reviewable call.

The Michigan staff must have felt a rushed kicker was better than an iced one. They did not want our walk-on, inexperienced kicker to have time to think about the kick.

We see both sides of this argument, but will have to differ with the staff on this one. They should know their personnel.

2) To be ejected the hit would have needed to be helmet to helmet, a blow to the head, or spearing, which is using the crown of the helmet as a weapon.

You might not like what Iowa did, but the hit was legal. The refs are keeping a closer eye on potentially harmful plays, especially watching to see if the defenders are leading with their helmet as well.

3) Michigan only rushes three, but generally has seven or eight players close to the line of scrimmage. Michigan’s linebackers are usually lined up tight to the line of scrimmage.

In our opinion Michigan backs the cornerbacks up because the staff lacks confidence in their ability to play press coverage.

It can be very frustrating watching opponents basically play catch. Not as upsetting as watching an offense hit Michigan for big plays and long touchdowns.

Written by GBMWolverine Staff

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