Michigan Defensive Coordinator Scott Shafer may be one of the least popular men in Ann Arbor right now, as the Wolverines’ defense is reaching historically bad levels. Though I defended the play of the defensive unit last week, the performance against Purdue was bordering on inexcusable. However, the main recipient of much (often idiotic) blame has been Scott Shafer. Much of the knowledge form this post comes from the all-knowing gsimmons85, without whom I’d know even less about football than I currently do. I assume he’ll be here to comment on this post, so if you have any specific questions that I can’t answer, fire away.

Playing Only 3 Defensive Linemen
The argument is as follows: Michigan has good defensive linemen and bad linebackers/safeties, so you should want to get as many d-linemen on the field as you can, and minimize the number of linebackers and saefties. Au contraire, mon ami. If you have bad defensive backs, you should actually want to play more of them. Why is this? You’re expecting bad players to make mistakes. Therefore, there is somebody to step in and cover for, say, Stevie Brown’s mistake if there are three safeties playing. In most games this year (and the Purdue game in particular – more on that in a second), Michigan would get the same amount of pressure on the quarterback whether there were 3 or 4 defensive linemen in the game. In that instance, why “waste” a player on the field by putting in another end who won’t increase the pressure at all, at the expense of allowing the secondary to be exposed.

Completely Switching Defensive Schemes against Purdue
I still don’t believe that this was all Shafer’s decision, as he’s never really run the 3-3-5 extensively. However, what the headman says goes, and the base defense was indeed changed in the Purdue contest. This was also to get the most help possible for the secondary, as they would presumably need it against a pass-heavy team. One final factor to take into account in this game was the base offense of Purdue. As a spread team, their blocking assignments are much easier when facing an odd front.

Playing Soft Coverage on the Corners
Michigan doesn’t have the cornerbacks to play tight man coverage. End of story. If they were trying to do this (despite their inability), we;d see teams going deep with much greater frequency and success against this team. If Morgan Trent and Donovan Warren were lined up a yard off the line of scrimmage, they would get blown past by opposing wide receivers a lot of the time. This would leave our questionable safeties to save the play, which we certainly don’t want, at least this year. In the future, when Shafer has more of his recruits in position, tight man coverage with a reliance on the safties to prevent big plays will be much more of an option.

Too Much Zone Coverage
This is a similar reasoning: Michigan can’t really cover that many teams in man. Boubacar Cissoko and Donovan Warren are the only ones on the team that are even particularly close to being able to do so. As much of a liability as John Thompson can be in pass coverage, do you really want to see him lined up in man coverage with a tight end or running back? If your answer to that question is anything other than “no,” you are wrong. Unless you are a fan of the opposing team, in which case your answer is “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.”

Lack of Player Fundamentals
This may be one of the few legitimate gripes against the defense this year. Many of the players lack fundamentals, particularly in the “tackling” department. However, how much of this is the fault of the coordinator? Next to none. Some of the players (i.e. Brandon Graham) are trying to do more than they should to make plays, since they know that their teammates can’t necessarily be counted on. This causes them to miss their assignments. Other players are simply not good physical matches for the positions they are playing at the Division-I level (i.e. Charles Stewart). Even if the coaching is poor, how much of that is on Shafer, and how much rests at the feet of their position coaches? Nearly all. Bruce Tall hasn’t been a defensive line coach since 2002. Jay Hopson spent the last three seasons coaching DBs. With the linebackers and safeties the primary liabilities on Michigan’s defense, they may be at least as culpable as Shafer.

The future is brighter for the defense, however. With such a quick transition to a new offense, little time in the spring was spent working fundamentals with the defense. Rather, they were often acting as a scout team for offensive execution drills, which hindered their learning. With an entire year of learning out of the way for the offense, even the defense should benefit (aside from the offense no longer harming the defense in game situations). Also, Shafer’s second year has been a coming-out party at each of his stops, and next year should be no different. An influx of talent at key positions and a year of coaching up should mean vast improvements for Scott Shafer’s defense next year.

Posted under Football

While Rich Rodriguez, Michigan coach, has never faced off against Mark Dantonio, Michigan State coach, the two individuals have coached against each other in a former life. In 2005, Dantonio was the headman at Cincinnati, the new kid on the block in the Big East. Rodriguez was just starting his multi-year romp through the Big East. The Bearcats and Mountaineers squared off in Nippert Stadium, then met again in Morgantown the following year.

Can that series tell us anything about how the contest in Ann Arbor this weekend is going to turn out? While those were the same coaches, they were with different teams, in drastically different situations. West Virginia was in the midst of making the entire conference its bitch, while Cincinnati was just moving up from Conference-USA. However, Mark Dantonio is a defensively-oriented coach (he was Ohio State’s defensive coordinator from 2001 to 2003), while Rich Rodriguez spends the majority of his energy on offense. Perhaps there are some relevant tidbits to tell us a little something about how Saturday’s game will transpire.

2005
38 West Virginia-Cincinnati 0
The Mountaineers rushed for 297 yards (Cincinnati only gained 269 total yards), with Steve Slaton leading the way, gaining 129 on 25 carries (5.16/carry). Pat White had success one the ground as well, gaining 111 yards to accompany his 100 through the air (on 7-12 passing with one TD).

Since Michigan doesn’t have Pat White, what can we glean from this performance? For starters, West Virginia scored on their first drive. This is a tribute to good game planning by Calvin Magee and Rich Rodriguez, and allowed the Mountaineers to put their opponents on their heels from the beginning of the game. In addition, the Bearcats gave up 100-yard rushing performances to two, players, which they rarely did under Dantonio (with the caveat that one of them was White, of course). Cincinnati’s leading tackler was a safety, which isn’t out of the ordinary, but maybe troubling when playing a team that did most of its damage on the ground. Cincinnati also did manage a few tackles for loss, sacks, and hurries. With a less mobile quarterback, that may mean that State can force Michigan into similar situations with its defensive schemes.

2006
42 West Virginia-Cincinnati 24
The rushing attack of West Virginia was once again potent in Year 2 of the Dantonio-Rodriguez rivalry. This time, the Mountaineers gained 313 yards on the ground, with 148 of them coming on the legs of Steve Slaton (on just 12 carries, for an eye-popping average of 12.33/carry). Pat White contributed 93 yards of his own, while going 7-13 for 98 yards and a TD over the air. Though Cincinnati scored the game’s first points on a field goal, it was all Mountaineers from there until the game was out of reach.

What can this tell us for a game between Michigan and Michigan State? Even if the Wolverines get down early, the quick-strike capability of this offense can keep them in the game. Also, although team speed is largely a matter of recruiting, even Cincinnati’s press release for this game acknowledged that the offensive schemes of West Virginia had the Cincinnati defensive braintrust stumped. Add in that Michigan has been building and recruiting for speed (and has had much better recruiting success that Michigan State in recent years), and the Wolverines could have success soon.

Analysis
West Virginia won by a comfortable margin in each game, averaging 40 points. The success on offense may lead one to believe that Mark Dantonio has trouble defending Rodriguez’s particular implementation of the spread. An interesting note may be that West Virginia was more dominant in 2005, the year in which they scored first (despite being on the road). If Michigan can draw first blood, perhaps the Spartans will be on their heels. Can RichRod make the struggles continue at a new school? We’ll find out Saturday afternoon.

Posted under Football

Coming into this season, I got countless e-mails asking me why Michigan was expected to struggle this year, whereas Penn State was considered one of the preseason favorites for the Big Ten title. I discussed this a bit back in the summer, but now that the Wolverines and Nitanny Lions are facing off this week, it’s certainly relevant to bring up again. So why, with similar changes in offensive philosophy, are Michigan and Penn State having such radically different success?

Quarterbacks
Steven Threet is not a world-beater in terms of talent, but on the other hand, neither is Daryll Clark. Clark, however, is a run-pass threat far more suited to a spread-option attack than is Threet. In fact, Rich Rodriguez recruited Clark out of prep school when he was still at West Virginia. Speaking of prep school, Clark is a 4th-year junior, with an additional year of high school under his belt in order to qualify for college. Threet is but a second-year freshman, who required no such additional schooling (he was class valedictorian from Adrian). Regardless of recruiting rankings, Clark has far more experience than Threet.

In terms of the players they replace, Chad Henne is Michigan’s career passing leader in several categories. Threet would have to be lights-out to even be just one step down. Clark, on the other hand, steps in for underachiever Anthony Morelli, who was never sniffed by the NFL. He can certainly be considered a substantial step up.

Coaching
Where Penn State’s coaching situation is the embodiment of continuity, Michigan’s staff has just one coach, Fred Jackson, who was with the team last year. Penn State can change its formations and some of its plays, but the terminology and teacher are consistent for every member of the team. At Michigan, on the other hand, nearly everything was different. The Wolverines didn’t even use shotgun sets last year, except in some 3rd down situations and the Citrus Bowl. Vocabulary, practice routines, and the offensive philosophy itself are completely different. Penn State even ran a version of its offense three years ago, so several of the more experienced players have even run it in their time at Beaver Stadium.

Talent and Experience
This category may be the greatest difference between Michigan and Penn State this year. Whereas the Wolverines came in having to replace 4 starters along the offensive line (including two with remaining eligibility), Penn State had only one player to replace. PSU’s wide receivers are in their fourth consecutive year as starters in the same unit. Though some of the role players in the receiving corps has changed, this is year four of the Butler, Norwood, and Williams show. At the running back position, Penn State has Evan Royster, the team’s oft-deployed backup from a year ago.

Michigan lost its top two receivers from a year ago, both of whom had eligibility left. They also lost the team’s all-time leading rusher, who carried the team on his back. Without Mike Hart last year, the Wolverines’ run game was something resembling pathetic. There was no reason for intense optimism coming into this year, as true freshman Sam McGuffie is the starter, and oft-injured Brandon Minor and Carlos Brown are the only players with any experience who return.
The Takeaway
This is not meant to be an excuse for Michigan’s season thus far, but rather an explanation of why Penn State is having so much more success than Michigan. Coming into the year, I think anyone who really paid attention could have seen it coming, and now we understand why the Nittany Lions are succeeding where Michigan has failed.

Posted under Football

Everyone knew Michigan was going to struggle this year. Maybe nobody thought the Wolverines would fall to Toledo, but everyone except the most fanatically-blind Michigan supporters knew that a Big Ten title was likely out of the question, and a bowl game might be a reasonable goal. There was always the future to look forward to. A year of learning under the spread system. A year of Barwis. A good 2009 recruiting class. The future was looking bright, because Michigan fans certainly weren’t planning to bail after one trying year under Rich Rodriguez. The members of that 2009 recruiting class, on the other hand? Some may not stick around to help clean up the carnage.

There are competing schools of thought on the link between winning and success on the recruiting trail. On one hand, you have the fans who hope prospects see the opportunity to come in and compete right away (and, realistically, some recruits do follow this train of thought). On the other side, one can find those who think a recruit will want to stay as far away as possible from anything that could be perceived as a “sinking ship” (again, some recruits think this, as well).

I personally think, from my trials and tribulations in following recruiting, that there is something of a hybrid between these two schools of thought. We’ll start when a recruit is young. If a child grows up watching a program succeed regularly, he might become something of a fan of that program. More likely, however, it may become “familiar” to him, if only on the most shallow name-recognition basis. Actual wins and losses (of course, except in the case where a recruit grows up a diehard fan of a certain program) probably don’t really become a factor until a high schooler becomes something of a potential recruit. Once a young man realizes that he might have an opportunity to play division 1 football (brother), the attention becomes a little more focused on the programs who might be potential destinations. This typically happens around a prospect’s junior year.

Senior year, however, is not likely a time for recruits to radically alter their perceptions of a program. If a team struggles during the 2008 season (this is completely hypothetical, of course), a young quarterback from San Diego or Wichita Falls (again, completely hypothetical, and I randomly selected those cities) will see that as an opportunity to come in and compete for a starting position right away. This is especially true of those hypothetical recruits who intend to hypothetically enroll early hypothetically. Hypothetically. Only the more loosely-committed players, or those who look at depth charts and realize that, although there is playing time up for grabs, it is not at their position, are the ones who might be swayed from the 2009 class.

So, who might fall into the category for this class? Bryce McNeal, Brandin Hawthorne, Anthony Fera, and DeWayne Peace have taken or plan to take visits elsewhere, along with former commitment William Campbell. DeQuinta Jones has been heard from very little since he committed, and his status is a virtual mystery to Michigan fans. As long as Michigan’s coaches continue to do a good job recruiting these players, they should retain those that they want. McNeal seems to be the most likely to decommit at this time.

So, let’s bring this back to the 2010 recruiting class. If high school juniors see a program lose, and form their perception from that, it means Michigan’s 2010 class could be pretty bad, right? Well, yes and no. Michigan already has 2 commits, both of whom are likely to be 4-star or 5-star prospects. A third is presumably on the way, another 4-star or better player. All three of these players have Michigan ties from long before their junior years of high school, and their perception of the Wolverines isn’t bound to change radically. Joining a class of highly-ranked prospects is one of the antidotes to a less-than-stellar year. Jeremy Jackson, Ricardo Miller, and hopefully Marvin Robinson all will be an incentive for other good recruits to join the class.

This may be one of the factors in some of the more inexplicably-good recruiting classes in recent memory. Notre Dame can sell its tradition, but one would think a 3-9 year would deter top prospects from joining the class of 2008 in South Bend. At the end of the day, however, the Irish finished with the #2 class in the nation. The only team that finished ahead of the Irish? Alabama, a team that had a recent history of mediocrity, despite its history. Nick Saban, in his second year in Tuscaloosa, and coming off a 7-6 record that didn’t exactly scream “WOO PROGRAM ON THE RISE” pulled in a stellar group of players to help turn the Tide’s fortunes around.

So, can Michigan, with its young, exciting coach pull in top classes in 2009 and 2010, despite a 2008 season that will likely end well below .500? The recruits aren’t stuck with Michigan, but we fans are hoping that Rich Rod can keep the snake oil flowing.

Posted under Coaching, Recruiting

1. After the Wisconsin game, fans were jubilant, and expected that Michigan’s offense had finally, permanently snapped out of whatever funk it was in to start the season.

Following Illinois, the exact opposite describes the popular sentiment among Michigan fans.

What’s the real Michigan offense? Somewhere in between. A young unit is going to be very streaky, and as the players gain experience (and guys like Darryl Stonum and Junior Hemingway return to replace LaTerryal Savoy), the consistency will improve, but it will never operate at the level it was toward the end of the Wisconsin game, at least not on a consistent basis.

2. The rain of fumbles will slow down, even if is isn’t completely eliminated this year. Unless Michigan’s coaches are idiots (and they aren’t), or the players are just terrible (they aren’t), Michigan will not continue to fumble at the rate it has been to this point in 2008. The coaches will work in practice, and seeing as how fumbles are a (mostly) chance occurrence, they will happen with less frequency.

If Michigan is not playing from behind, the players will also force plays less often, and risk ball security in the process.

3. The Michigan defense might not be quite as good as it looked during the Wisconsin game. It might not be quite as bad as it looked during the Illinois game. The real Michigan defense? You guessed it, somewhere right in between.

Coming off an emotional performance against Wisconsin, in which they were on the field for more than 36 minutes, perhaps the defenders were ripe for a letdown performance. After such a physical performance last week, it’s understandable (but no excuse) why there were some missed tackles this week. Regardless, they held Illinois to just 24 points through 3 quarters, but they are not yet ready to carry the offense in every game, especially when they have to overcome 5 fumbles (with 2 lost).

4. Steven Threet actually had a decent game, aside from the fumbled exchange with Shaw, and the pump fake fumble. He had a QB rating of 130.3, which would have been better save a few drops. Running, he wasn’t quite as good as Michigan needed him to be, but there’s always the future for improvement.

5. Despite the losses, Illinois is a pretty darn good team. If Michigan can play as well as they did today (certainly on defense) for the rest of the year, only Penn State and Ohio State are likely to light up the scoreboard as much as the Illini did.

So what does it all mean? Michigan isn’t that good. But you know what? Maybe they aren’t that bad, either. At this point, there’s not much fans can do besides hope for a bowl.

Posted under Coaching

UPDATE: Issue fixed

Coach Simmons, purveyor of the best technical football blog this side of Smart Football, Three and Out, joined us today for the podcast. In addition to being an excellent blogger, he is defensive coordinator for a large high school in North Carolina. In whatever spare time he has, he acts as the resident coach of the Michigan blogosphere posting as gsimmons85.

In the podcast we talked about his coaching philosophies, his team, how he views Michigan and his love of his car. We barely scraped the surface so we hope to have him back. Without further adieu:

 

 Coach Simmons Talks about the Illini [16:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

(If you can’t see the player, you can right click here and click save target as)

Visual Aid 1:

Visual Aid 2:

Posted under Blogcast, Coaching

The Situation
There are 2 minutes and 28 seconds left in the third quarter, and Michigan’s offense is like, kinda sucking. And by “kinda sucking” I mean “had 31 yards in the entire game prior to this drive.” However, with 54 yards already racked up in this one drive, a touchdown would be the perfect thing to break the offensive funk. It would also put Michigan down by only 12 points, despite Wisconsin dominating most of the first three quarters. They might just be able to get back into the game…

The Personnel and Formation
Michigan is on the right hash in a basic spread set. Brandon Minor is the running back to Steven Threet’s left. Greg Mathews and Junior Hemingway are the wideouts to the left and right, respectively. In the left slot is Martavious Odoms. At slot on the right side is tight end Kevin Koger, appearing in a game for the first time this year. Wisconsin counters with a 3-2-6 dime package. The four CB/Nickel players are head up over the receivers. The linebackers are head up over Threet and Minor. The two safeties are deep.

The PlayAt the snap, Threet takes a 3-step drop. Minor sets as though he’s pass blocking, though Wisconsin only comes on a three-man rush. Free of the duty of protecting Threet, Minor runs a short circle route out of the backfield. Odoms runs a 10-yard stop route. The other three receivers all run vertical routes, with Mathews and Hemingway on fly routes down the sideline, and Koger running a seam down the middle. 

Wisconsin rushes the three linemen, runs man coverage on the receivers (and backs, including a spy on Threet), and has two safeties taking deep halves over the top. Threet goes deep to Koger, who is behind his defender. Koger makes the catch at the 6, and isn’t hit by a safety until after he’s in the endzone. 

Why it Worked
First things first, if your receivers are able to get open against man coverage, this is an effective play call against 2-man-under defense. Considering Wisconsin had a nickel corner lined up in press coverage against a TE, Koger should be able to get open, the question is whether he’ll be able to maintain that separation. With his athleticism, Koger is able to defeat the defender down the field. 

The wideouts on the outside are able to force the safeties to stay wide, so they aren’t leaving their corners on an island (which they don’t want to do in 2-man-under coverage – their duty is to defend anything over the top). That horizontal stretch allows Koger to catch the ball in the middle of the field in the seam between the deep men. Allow me to point out here that this is the point of Michigan’s “look over to the sideline” no-huddle offense. The coaches in the booth saw two safeties high, and knew that a deep seam route would likely be effective. They told the coaches down on the field, who then relayed the read to Threet. One must assume that as he gets more comfortable with the offense (probably not until future years), Steve will be able to make these reads himself.

The protection on this play was also good. Michigan’s dynamic offense forces the defense to account for every player, including the quarterback (though keep in mind that Michigan’s offense had been anything but stellar at this point in the game). Because of that, Wisconsin had to rush only three men in order to man up on everyone and keep two safeties high. Michigan’s offensive line, for all their difficulty run-blocking, has actually performed fairly well in protection so far this year, and the five blockers (which would have been four with Minor if the LB had blitzed) were easily able to corral the pass rush. Threet had enough time in the pocket to let Koger go deep, and the timing was perfect.

Now you know what it was like Inside the Play.

Posted under Analysis, Coaching

An interesting tidbit I saw on ESPN’s College Football Live today. John Saunders, Doug Flutie, and Trevor Matich went to the demonstration field in the studio to discuss primarily the Wildcat (Wild Hog, Wild Reb, etc.) formation. Though Michigan has run out of this formation very few times this year, the emphasis of their segment was on how running out of the shotgun formation is particularly taxing on the center.

Posted under Coaching

Since I let Paul’s post stand on its own after the game Saturday, here are a few things I’d like to add:

Posted under Analysis, Coaching

Let’s break down a bit of Notre Dame film from last year. Since Charlie Weis is the vaunted offensive genius who led the Irish to the Worst Offense in History, last year, we’ll look at the offensive “effort” against the Cardinal of Stanford.

First of all, I don’t know how John Latina still has a job. His offensive lines have gotten worse every year, even when they returned a lot of talent. Take a look at the regression by Sam Young, and you’ll see what I mean. In case you don’t believe me, here are some examples of the All-Star recruits of the Notre Dame offensive line getting completely owned by Stanford(!), of all teams.

Another item of note is the fact that Jimmy Clausen may just not be quite ready, but either way, there is no way he should have been starting for anyone last year, much less a team that has the QB tradition of Joe Montana and Brady Quinn. He was quite fond in 2007 of taking sacks by “scrambling” for 5-10 yard losses, when he was under little pressure and should have just thrown it away. On the rare occasion that he got good protection, he still managed to miss wide open guys, or threw passes that required superhuman effort for wideouts to catch. Another thing Clausen too often (not pictured) did was not trust his arm, and throw to the checkdown option even when his first read was open (and often widely so).

And of course, there is the lack of speed at the Irish skill positions. Slow running backs aren’t too much of a liability when they can do all the things that Mike Hart could for Michigan. When you’re just mediocre AND you get run down from behind by a Stanford linebacker, that’s a problem. This category of videos is also good for showing why Stanford lost to Notre Dame: the scheme was good, but players didn’t always execute right, and that led to several big plays.

This past weekend, we saw Notre Dame face off against San Diego State, and it appeared that few of their issues from last year have been resolved. Clausen was much improved, but it’s time to find out whether he can be so poised when he is getting killed on every other play.

Posted under Coaching