Preview: Minnesota 2014

Essentials

Image via MVictors

Overview

Minnesota is probably not real good. They've got quarterback issues up the wazoo, they lost 30-7 to a middling-at-best Big 12 team, they completed one pass last week. They are, in short, a Big Ten team. So I'm sayin' there's a chance. 

Run Offense vs Minnesota

Cameron Botticelli exists

With Shane Morris probably starting, about which more later, Michigan figures to lean heavily on its ground game one week after it blorped out just over three yards a carry against an undersized and probably not very good Utah team. Since Michigan doesn't incorporate the quarterback as a runner you have to account for regularly, that means a lot of stacked boxes without recourse to actually-threatening play action and a lot of meh. Michigan had two runs that weren't meh against Utah: one pin and pull zone and a power play that Derrick Green cut back when a Utah DT went blorp himself. It was ugly.

They go up against a Minnesota defense that we have little data on. They crushed SJSU last week; SJSU employs GERG and can be safely discounted as a relevant data point. The week before TCU ripped them for 6.3 yards a carry but on only 27 attempts; Middle Tennessee had a respectable 4.4 yards a pop on 43.

FWIW, last year the Gophers were highly variable leaning towards bad, allowing 4.5  yards a carry overall. Six of their Big Ten opponents went over 180 yards while averaging at least 4.4 yards a carry; the exceptions were Northwestern and of course Michigan. Remember how we were all mildly intrigued by tackle over? Yeah, that was 3.2 YPC, the worst performance against the Gophers last year by any Power 5 school. Only Northwestern was within a yard.

So that's depressing.

This year Michigan seems better, at least most of the time. Minnesota has a reasonable case they will be as well, with three of their defensive linemen returning along with their best linebacker. It did not show against their one competent opponent, and Ace looked at a game where they were playing a team that employs GERG. Yes, on the other side of the ball. It does not matter. So who knows?

Key Matchup: Michigan OL versus slants and stunts from Minnesota. Michigan had a hard time IDing them against Utah and Minnesota brings a similarly smallish but mobile front that will attempt to mess up Michigan's gaps.

[Hit THE JUMP for they fart, and sludge / sludge, and fart / fart fart fart, sludge sludge sludge / the Sludgey And Farty Show!]

Pass Offense vs Minnesota

[Bryan Fuller]

This preview assumes that Shane Morris will be starting Saturday.

So: new starter Shane Morris comes in after Michigan finished murdering Devin Gardner into tiny bits. Thus far in his career Morris has been a disaster waiting to happen, whether that's in brief cameos at the end of games or in Michigan's public and semi-public scrimmages. Morris has a cannon of an arm that he uses to throw NFL level darts. A quarter of these go to the other team. This is our issue, Clark.

When Morris got into the Utah game, he made a series of bad decisions about when to stay in the pocket culminating in a scramble on which he fumbled; he threw some four-yard passes; he threw a ball about ten yards over Jehu Chesson's head that was intercepted; he threw a ball about 65 yards to Dennis Norfleet on the run. He is a poorly-aimed bazooka at the moment. Who can run, weirdly.

I'm not expecting much here, as Morris looked as confused as Gardner when he got in the game. Maybe that was nerves and he'll be better. I'll have to see something that looks vaguely like progress before believing it at this point. Right now I'm half expecting Gardner is on the field in the third quarter.

As for the Gophers, they've done well against a bunch of teams that don't seem particularly good. They did hold TCU to 5.6 yards an attempt, and for the year they're at 5.8—even if that's against mostly bad teams, 5.8 is 5.8 is 5.8 for a secondary that hasn't been described as anything other than "beleaguered" for the past 30 years. And San Jose State did significantly better against Auburn than they did the Gophers. It is possible they are improved here. Data is still thin.

Ace did note that the Gopher safeties are wobbly at times, and with Everybody's Michigan State Cover 4 now installed in Minneapolis there could be opportunities downfield:

Thompson (the near-side safety this time) again gets way too far outside, and the defensive back in the slot, Wells, isn't in position to bail him out:

I wasn't particularly impressed with Minnesota's safety play in this game; they're definitely susceptible to the occasional coverage bust, and I also thought Boddy-Calhoun took a couple poor routes to the ball in run support that could lead to big plays for Michigan, as well.

Ace also noted that Gopher CB Eric Murray is one of the Big Ten's most underrated players; that figures to get a stiff test against Devin Funchess as long as Funchess's ankle is cooperating.

Also getting a test: those tackles again. Theiren Cockran had 7.5 sacks a year ago as a still-raw sophomore and will be licking his chops at the prospect of running at Morris's blind side with the wobbly Ben Braden trying to get in the way. The Gophers already have eight sacks from seven different players, and while all of those came against the non-power sections of the schedule they seem hugely improved in that department—despite having a cottony soft schedule last year they could only muster 18 sacks across a 13 game season.

Key matchup: Ben Braden versus Cockran. Expect Michigan to offer TE/FB help to him; expect Minnesota to try to overload it and get to Morris from behind, whereupon his clock may not go off at the right time and he will get exploded for sack/fumble action.

Run Defense vs Minnesota

This will be a radical shift in approach from the opponent. After four straight spread offenses Michigan gets the BEEFCAKE Gophers and their determination to grind into the face of any number of guys in the box. There is no better expression of the Minnesota offense than their starters, which list a "WR/FB/TE" in lieu of a second WR:

They are a truly weird, unique offense: a shotgun pro-style running game. I don't think there's anyone else in the country that does it. Maybe NIU, where Kill came from.

Anyway. Minnesota has a couple of key injuries that may or may not get worked out this weekend, and even though they are nominally part of the passing game everything is the run game so I'm talking about it now. Jerry Kill said he was "cautiously optimistic" QB Mitch Leidner would return Saturday; TE Maxxxxxx Williams seems farther away from the field:

“He was limited but practiced for the first time,” Kill said. “He moved Ok. We didn’t do anything drastic but he did do some things today, which was encouraging.”

No doubt this revelation has given Michigan the key to unlock the Gophers' treasury.

No matter who plays at TE and QB, the main man is going to be senior RB David Cobb. Cobb is not a Barber/Maroney level guy. He's a one cut, find the seam, go get some yards player. But he has been thoroughly productive despite not being a transcendent talent. He averaged 5.1 yard a  carry last year and those carries were biased away from Minnesota's cottony soft nonconference schedule. After being limited against Iowa and Michigan, Cobb went over 100 yards in 5 of his next 6 games, with 139 yards on 27 carries against Penn State—that seems to be slightly more yards than Fitzgerald Toussaint got on the same number of carries—and scraping over 100 against Michigan State(!), albeit in a 14-3 loss.

The Gopher offensive line is veteran, and middling. Zac Epping is an All Big Ten level guard who can expect to get his name called in the upcoming NFL draft, but the other guys top out at decent unless they've gotten radically better this offseason—not impossible. Also not likely. While the overall numbers look nice, TCU sounded an alarm: the Gophers got only 2.5 YPC against the Horned Frogs, had fewer than 100 rushing yards on the day, and were annihilated 30-7.

Michigan counters with a rush defense sporting gaudy stats and defensive linemen who have been winning one on one battles with anyone they've gone up against. This includes Notre Dame and Utah, test the rush D passed with flying colors. This will be another test, and while one game isn't much to go on, TCU indicates that this Gopher team can be bottled up by a good D. It seems like Michigan has that, at least.

Expect a lot of James Ross as Michigan finally goes up against a team that doesn't make them play a ton of nickel; expect a lot of two yard runs; expect a lot of third and medium.

Key Matchup: Ryan Glasgow and Willie Henry versus Epping and company. The strength of the Minnesota line is on the interior, and that interior line is the heart of their entire offense. I'm buffing the figgins and polishing the alabaster for the Order of St. Kovacs ceremony; shut Minnesota down and it's a done deal.

Pass Defense vs Minnesota

Will there have to be one? Whether or not Leidner's back, Minnesota's extreme ground bias is usually only seen in flexbone teams. In fact, the only teams to throw it less than the Gophers did last year were Army, Navy, Air Force, Georgia Tech, and Bob Davie's New Mexico. That's four flexbones and a 404 not found. So far this year the Gophers are averaging just over 16 attempts a game.

And then there's the efficacy of those passes. Flexbone outfits use the pass as a deadly counter when you overplay their option (see Jordan Kovacs being asked to do way too much against Air Force); the Gophers are at 6.1 this year and were at 7.2 a year ago. Williams is their leading receiver with six catches for 110 yards; sophomore Donovahn Jones has six for 93, and  then there's a smattering of guys with 2-4 catches.

It probably doesn't matter much whether Leidner plays or not. He's completing 48% of his passes with two touchdowns and 4 interceptions; Streveler was 1 of 7 in his starting debut. They'll complete some dink things, like five yard hitches, and a couple of times their play action will get chunks. Passing downs are a lost cause.

Michigan is going to shut this down unless they screw up, and since football is hard they are likely to screw up at least a little bit. Minnesota drives that cover appreciable territory other than that one 17-play slog they are guaranteed to have will be built on busted assignments and missed tackles. These have not been frequent of late, but they have neither been unheard of either.

Key Matchup: Michigan safeties versus I Turned 20 Yards Into 80. Jeremy Clark had a goof last week that did so; let's hope to prevent a repeat performance.

Special Teams

Freshman kicker Ryan Santoso has been shaky so far, going 1/3. Both misses were from outside 40; his make was from 38. Gopher punter Ryan Mortell has been very good so far in his career, averaging 43 yards an attempt last year and 46 so far this year. Opponents have been able to get off a number of returns against the Gophers. Opponents are averaging over ten yards a punt return this year and last.

There's not much notable about the Gopher return teams, though it's not like that matters against Michigan.

Key Matchup: YOU PUT ELEVEN MEN ON THE FIELD FOR PUNT RETURNS

Intangibles

Cheap Thrills

Worry if...

• Epping and company are handling the Michigan DTs.
• Morris throws directly to a Minnesota player a lot.
• Wilton Speight comes in.

Cackle with knowing glee if...

• It's third and long for Minnesota.
• I'm out of things.
• Pants!

Fear/Paranoia Level: 3 (Baseline 5; –1 for They Suck, +1 for We Suck, –1 for Their Offense Is Pointed At The Best Part Of The Team, –1 for And They May Not Have Their Starting QB, +1 for Our Starting QB Is In The Fetal Position Asking For The Ghosts Of Sacks Past To Leave Him Be, –1 for Vegas Thinks They Really Really Suck)

Desperate need to win level: 4 (Baseline 5; –1 for Well That Would Be Definitive, –1 for I Feel Nossing, +1 for It Must Suck For The Players, +1 for We Can Still Win The Big Ten, –1 for If Michigan State Is Abducted By Aliens Midseason)

Loss will cause me to... publish that post I'm drafting about coaches to keep an eye on, probably advocate Bob Stitt way too much, but seriously Bob Stitt is football Beilein you like Beilein don't you LET'S GO BOB STITT.

Win will cause me to... seriously you should consider Bob Stitt but I guess it can wait

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict:

Sludgefart will meet its sludgefart match on Saturday, increasing sludge and fart levels to dangerous heights last seen when Iowa played Penn State that one time. This figures to be a ridiculously boring slog, with Michigan and Minnesota plunging into the line in an attempt to protect their quarterback. The game should remain close the whole way, so no one will be forced out of their shell.

As to who wins, the obliteration of the Gopher run game by TCU and possible/probable absence of Maxxxx should tip the scales to Michigan, which can always throw it to Funchess downfield and see what happens.

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid Sunday:

• Shane Morris starts, Gardner plays.
• Special K plays Sir Mix A Lot.
• This looks nothing like either of the games that went on Thursday.
• Michigan, 11-5