Fee Fi Foe Film: Maryland Offense

38-0 at halftime, so this game was functionally over here.

West Virginia ranks tenth in defensive S&P+.

Michigan is fourth.

Only a biblical weather event could possibly save Maryla-- OH COME ON.

Anyway, Maryland got thwacked 45-6 by West Virginia last weekend, and the final score doesn't even do it justice; the Mountaineers carried a 38-0 lead into halftime. Maryland quarterback Caleb Rowe went 10/27 for 67 yards and four interceptions, was pulled for Daxx Garman—who added a pick of his own—and still was named the starter for Saturday's game. Their most dangerous offensive weapon is a 5'7" cornerback who doesn't play offense.

Michigan's defense is still picking bits of Cougar out of their teeth. This won't be pretty, hurricane-influenced weather or not.

Personnel. Seth's diagram [click to embiggen]:

Maryland's starting left guard, Mike Minter, had season-ending surgery on his labrum last week. To replace him, the Terps slid right tackle Ryan Doyle to left guard and inserted 2014 five-star recruit Damian Prince into the lineup at RT.

Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Spread. Maryland kept the run-pass distribution pretty even throughout, even when they were down huge.

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? Mostly zone stuff.

Hurry it up or grind it out? The Terps aren't a hurry-up team. Sometimes they'll try to get off a quick snap, but usually their pace is pretty easy to keep up with.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown.]

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Rowe isn't much of a run threat, even though Maryland will show the occasional read option look (and almost always give to the RB). He's approximately Rudock-level athletic, maybe a little less so—able to grab some yardage here or there if a side of the field opens up but by no means somebody you need to spy. He gets a 4.

Dangerman: I was running behind on watching film when Seth made the diagram, so I defaulted to WR Levern Jacobs as the dangerman; he looked great in 2013 when the Terps had a functional passing game and he had to step in to a big role when injuries hit the receiving corps. Jacobs sat out 2014 due to an off-field issue and has returned as the #1 receiver. That hasn't translated into much production because the quarterback play has been bad; Jacobs is still a dangerous athlete who can make things happen in the open field.

I should add running back Brandon Ross to this category. He gained 130 yards on 15 carries in this game, and while some of that was certainly due to circumstance—WVU was fine letting Maryland run the ball down 28 or more—he had a nice power/speed combination, though as you'll see his best run went to waste.

Zook Factor: Well, there's this:

Maryland coach Randy Edsall asked about reports of players-only meeting: "that’s news to me. I don’t think we had a players only meeting."

— angelique (@chengelis) September 29, 2015

And this:

As some posters on @Maryland247 pointed out, Edsall seemed to misinterpret Forrest Gump's quote pic.twitter.com/FskliNfPJH

— Josh Stirn (@Josh_Stirn) September 29, 2015

Also, Edsall chose to punt on 4th-and-5 from the WVU 46 with his team already down 21-0 in the first half. They got the ball back down 28-0. Stunning, I know.

HenneChart: So, yeah, this wasn't a good day for Caleb Rowe:

I can't embed videos, unfortunately, because the Big 12 version of T3 media flagged my cut-ups, but you can still see them on YouTube. Rowe's first interception was his worst, throwing a long ball directly to a corner who was bailing into a deep zone the entire play. On his second he overthrew to a safety while trying to fit the ball between zones to a receiver who wasn't looking for the ball. His third was a needlessly risky, cross-field duck in the face of pressure. 

Rowe's fourth pick wasn't charted; it came on fourth down and nobody was open, so he made the right decision to try to force one anyway and the predictable occurred.

Even when not throwing to the wrong team, Rowe wasn't very good. He had a surprising amount of trouble putting screens on the money, tended to miss high/long on his throws, and didn't show good pocket presence. Michigan's front should be able to rattle him into some ugly throws.

OVERVIEW

Maryland is a little more multiple than the spreads Michigan has seen so far this season; they use a fair amount of the pistol, usually with a fullback next to the QB, as a run-heavy formation, and they'll throw in the occasional snap under center.

As noted, they stayed pretty balanced:

Maryland tried to make life easier on Rowe by calling lots of play-action. That mostly resulted him getting pressure in his face, especially since WVU stopped keying on the run about midway through the second quarter.

The offensive line looks great in the advanced stats—sixth in adjusted line yards, fourth in adjusted sack rate—but that didn't entirely match the eye test. They generally looked good blocking for the run, getting solid push up front; they don't blow open huge holes but they hold their blocks well. The left side of the line was especially good in this regard.

Pass blocking was a different story. Prince looked like a weak link. He got manhandled by a defensive end who batted down a pass right in Rowe's face in the first quarter. Later in the quarter, he gave up a sack when he failed to identify an obvious blitzer off the edge and let him run clean around the corner. He's good as a road-grader but he looks slow on the edge and he's liable to make freshman mistakes. The rest of the line wasn't a lot better. West Virginia blitzes hit home routinely. Some of that looked to be on Rowe, who failed to check out of plays that were doomed to failure, but the line also didn't do a great job picking up everybody.

Ross and Wes Brown are a solid one-two at running back, with Brown filling the role as a third-down back. They mostly took what the line got them when running up the gut; both have the speed to get the corner on outside runs.

The receivers were tough to judge because the quarterback play was so underwhelming. Levern and Taivon Jacobs are both small, quick guys who do their best work after the catch. The other guys didn't always seem to be on the same page with Rowe and it wasn't easy to tell who was at fault.

This is an offense whose strength plays into Michigan's strength—running up the gut on the Wolverines doesn't seem at all sustainable right now—and their weakness is very exploitable by a Michigan pass defense that looks great at both generating pressure and blanketing receivers.

PLAY BREAKDOWN

Maryland had one decent offensive play, a 55-yard run by Ross. They come out in a pistol four-wide set:

The left side of the line and the slot receiver are the keys here. Even though Damian Prince totally fails to get a cut on the backside...

...those other three control their blocks. The slot receiver gets great movement on the slot corner while the left tackle begins to seal off the edge.

The left tackle turns and completes an excellent scoop block. A big crease emerges.

Ross gains the corner with help from a poor angle by one of WVU's linebackers.

With great downfield blocking from his receivers, Ross gets the sideline.

All he has to do is fend off one last man in pursuit to reach the end zone. He's caught at the two and dives for the pylon.

And, just before his knee touches, he fumbles the ball clear out the back of the end zone.

First down, West Virginia.