Upon Further Review 2015: Defense vs Minnesota

Sorry about the lateness of the UFRs this week. Finding all the video took forever.

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FORMATION NOTES: Michigan spent a lot of the game like this, with Ross at the buck (standing to the bottom of the DL) and Peppers and Hill flanked outside of the two ILBs.

This was an especially weird game to play Ross as the buck since otherwise you would have expected him to play a lot as a third linebacker. I just called this "nickel even" since Ross was functioning as a DL.

This was "quads inner bunch"; Peppers is about to do something almost awesome.

All else per usual.

PERSONNEL NOTES: No Godin, who was injured, so the rotation on the DL was circumscribed. Hurst and Glasgow rotated at the nose with scattered snaps on which both played; Charlton got snaps here and there, but Wormley and Henry had a heavy workload.

Ross bizarrely got most of the snaps at buck instead of Jenkins-Stone; he did not do well. Morgan didn't come off the field; it was mostly Bolden at the other LB spot but Gedeon got a little time; there were a few 4 LB sets.

Secondary was mostly the usual, with Thomas the primary dime back this week. Clark got most of the second CB playing time.

[After THE JUMP: flukes and… not flukes]

This defense ain't Joe Flacco.

I mean, okay, some things went wrong. But I mean FFS. Leidner threw at least four balls that should have been intercepted that he got away with, and several others that were not at all good ideas. This is a complete fluke.

Nobody can ever tell me that Leidner was trying that. Wilson shouldn't overrun it after, sure, but that's… it's… ugh, let's not even talk about it.

This is a complete fluke.

I mean, sure, Dymonte Thomas needs to wear gloves instead of old Nintendo controllers taped together, but for that to go directly to the WR is a complete fluke.

This is like 90% fluke.

The TE starts falling over, whether intentionally or not, and that confuses the DBs. Peppers throws his hands up to show that he didn't commit PI because he thinks the TE is out of the play. Want him to play that better but dude, WTF.

If Michigan gets even half of those this is not that game. I have some worries coming out of this one, but the DL was still dominant, Lewis still a superior cover corner, and Peppers is emerging into a star even in coverage.

So many of the things were flukes or fixable that part of me wants to fling this in the memory hole and move on.

I detect palpable holes, though.

Yeah, this was the defense's worst game of the season even if we discount Mitch Leidner cracking pocket aces four times. The opposing ground game was extant, and Leidner found a relatively large number of open dudes.

Before we get into what went awry let's

hurl a CHART into downfield coverage that is somehow not intercepted

get ourselves a baseline. I gave up wrestling with the ESPN3 replay, so I missed the first two plays of Minnesota's second drive. Seth provided the first heave; the other play was a one yard run on which I probably missed another opportunity to +1 a couple DL.

Anyway:

The constant here is the defensive line. They wrecked Minnesota's OL. Pressure induced a number of the bad-idea throws that still worked, and every time—every time—Minnesota tried to single up Henry and Glasgowboth of those guys would put their blockers two yards in the backfield.

Glasgow was his usual fierce self:

No matter who Minnesota put on him he ended up standing that guy up in the backfield.

Hurst was a 280 pound dude shot out of a cannon on several critical redzone plays. Michigan held Minnesota to a bunch of field goals in large part because Hurst showed up in ur base inside the ten all day:

(Note that Henry also wrecked his guy for insurance.) He was through the line in a flash on the penultimate play; he pressed so hard on various stunts that he got through up the gut for pressure.

There are some minuses in there for occasional blowouts or people popping into the wrong gap. Hurst was largely responsible for a 17-yard run when he put himself in the wrong gap when he ripped his OL away. Not sure if that had anything to do with Michigan moving guys around to cover for the absence of Godin or not; he was playing nose there so probably just a freshman brainfart.

Now I have just remembered that Hurst is a redshirt freshman. I am happy about that.

Henry and Wormley were also good but didn't feature as much given the way the Minnesota run game was attacking; they were in Leidner's face a lot but didn't get the sacks because Leidner just threw the ball anyway.

And then the capper:

Go read Ryan Glasgow on that play; it's better than anything I can tell you.

PFF called defensive line the best in the country after the game and they might be right about that.

What was with Ross playing at buck?

Your guess is as good as mine. Jenkins-Stone was apparently not suspended or injured and in fact played on scattered snaps. Ross got about as much time as Ojemudia did before he got injured, and he was bad. This year's season preview noted that one of Ojemudia's great strengths was his ability to play both sides of a zone read when he was the optioned guy. Ross does not have that ability. (Nor would you expect him to.)

So early Minnesota was handing off and Ross would duly collapse down to make a tackle. He shuffled too fast and furious, though, and when Minnesota came back to that to test him they found him wanting.

M blitzed and slanted away with Bolden filling backside; Ross doesn't need to play this anywhere near as aggressively as he does. Costs of a midseason switch to a position you've never played before.

On the next play Brooks would find a cutback lane as Ross pushed inside too far and then gave a bunch of ground once the size disparity of the matchup won out over Ross's initial momentum.

He did get around on a stunt really fast to help pressure an incompletion, but any marginal improvement on Michigan's ability to stunt from that spot was more than offset by the fact that Ross is 225 instead of 255 and also a linebacker.

I'm surprised I collected so many positives for him in this game, but keep in mind that he's playing a DL spot and those slant towards positives because I don't individually hit guys for not getting pass rush but they do get plusses for getting there. (Not so much a problem this year, but in previous years I have often said "yes, but look at the pressure metric.) He was a dropoff from RJS.

We have safety problems? I remember safety problems. I hate safety problems.

Sadly, yes. While we can probably dismiss Jarrod Wilson overrunning the back-shoulder corner as an uncharacteristic error unlikely to repeat, I am less sanguine about his running mates. Delano Hill had a massive bust on a Leidner zone read TD:

This is now the point at which we get a little worried. That happened. The FB wheel against MSU happened. The UNLV touchdown was set up by Hill getting beat and missing a tackle. BYU had a shot over the top on which Hill managed to recover, but that was dodgy for a bit. That's a trend.

Hill was spotty elsewhere, getting sealed inside on a crack block on which he offered no resistance. He didn't offer anything positive to offset his mistakes in this one.

Meanwhile, Dymonte Thomas remains fast and in the wrong place a lot. Minnesota's opening drive featured him getting righteously shook on a post-corner:

One big run happened when Thomas came down as an extra guy in the box and sat doing nothing for a while. Hurst made the first eight yards happen; he had the next:

He was in a great spot when he got manned up on a fade route, because that asked him to run fast in one direction. Other stuff is questionable. Yes, it is amazingly frustrating that a player like that didn't redshirt and got bounced between several different positions.

Wilson is what he is: usually reliable, not much of a playmaker. This game was a bit weird because he did things of note. In the second half Leidner put up a punt at a double covered WR that felt similar to the Thomas missed interception, but where Thomas broke on the ball and high-pointed it Wilson drifted back with the wide receiver. He got a PBU, but the opportunity for a turnover was gone.

Wilson also got a PBU when Michigan bracketed Maye on third and goal; on that one I thought he did a good job to see an attempted back shoulder (maybe) and get to the ball:

He also was the beneficiary of a well-timed blitz from Durkin that got him a sack. He's not a star but he was fine aside from that one long touchdown on which he was probably so gob-smacked he had anything to do that he momentarily shorted out.

What on earth happened to Desmond Morgan?

I don't know. This was the worst game I've seen Desmond Morgan play, ever. He started as a true freshman. But in this game he had a hand in probably a third of Minnesota's total offense.

You're probably aware of the wheel route.

There's not even play action there; Morgan creeps to the line of scrimmage and steps forward after the snap as the line pass drops. That was only the tip of an iceberg that gave the impression of a guy who had sudden amnesia.

Morgan also bit hard on a few other play action passes to open up huge lanes.

A second half seam was equally bad—possibly worse. The third and seventeen screen that picked up a first down on Minnesota's final drive was also a Morgan biff: he took a very weird outside angle despite being given a clear path to the tailback, who he appears to be in man coverage on. His path to the back meant he could go straight upfield immediately; any delay there lets the safeties rally and either forces a punt or a fourth down conversion.

His trademark ability to rock an OL backwards when they release to him was occasionally on display, but Minnesota successfully confused him with a bunch of pop passes, zone read variants, and run/pass options. This is not usually what I see when I see Morgan take on a block:

He didn't know what he was looking at for big chunks of the day, and that was never more evident than on a trap*. Morgan went to hit a pulling lineman who wasn't even headed for him, and while he blew that guy up he forgot about something:

Woof. I don't know what was going on with him but let's hope it was just a one-game jinx. That is so far out of step with his other performances this year. It makes no sense.

He did cover one pop pass well, and that immediately paid off with a sack. The rest of it was unbelievably ugly.

Let's pretend this never happened.

*[I've seen more traps run at Michigan's D this year than I have in a long time, undoubtedly because teams are now practicing them as they prepare for M.]

Bolden was basically fine. I still wish he'd hit someone. I mean:

Same thing's been going on for four years now. Minnesota converted the ensuing third down by a yard. Bolden also went upfield of a guy on a (legal) pick play on which Michigan got RPSed; he exacerbated the problem.

BUT PEPPERS THOUGH

Yes, also Peppers here. I'm actually more excited about what Peppers did on defense in this game than anything else. After six or seven weeks on which Peppers was a little weak in coverage, against Minnesota he stuck to his guys like he was Jourdan Lewis. This was most prominent on his leaping PBU:

But he was also in the hip pocket of a WR on an earlier third down, and at multiple other points during the game when I was able to check his coverage on guys who didn't end up thrown to he was almost always in the same position Lewis would be. Now, this was against a lot of tight ends and a possession receiver type so the degree of difficulty wasn't enormous. Still encouraging.

Meanwhile, the opponent's weekly Maybe I Should Throw A Screen At Jabrill Peppers freakout nearly resulted in a spectacular pick six:

His hybrid space player ability was also critical on the final drive when Michigan got RPSed by an arc zone read keeper on which Peppers was the only guy in Leidner's zip code. Morgan—sigh—never realized Leidner had the ball, so the only thing between Minnesota and a touchdown was Peppers first forcing it back inside and then doing his Peppers thing to teleport around the tight end and grab an ankle.

He was the man in this game in every phase.

And while we're here, the Peppers return was his ability to field all manner of punts paying off in a big way.

Video angle isn't great but that is a 40 yard punt to the near hash. Peppers lines up probably 45 yards deep close to that hash. I'm pretty sure he chose to catch that on the fly on a punt he could have easily fielded while stationary, and that's 80% of the return.

Speaking of that arc keeper… we seemed so rickety in this game. What was going on?

Michigan's faced a lot of spread offenses so far this year but this was the first one that really put the screws to Michigan with a ton of tweaks on zone reads and pop passes. Previous opponents haven't had the QB experience to run a bunch of different stuff. Michigan, meanwhile, doesn't rep this stuff much in practice. This game felt like the bad old days when spread offenses were going to outperform against Michigan.

Hopefully a blip caused by an unwise decision to play Ross at DE and an anomalously grim game from Morgan.  But the RPS still came out even, so ¯\_(?)_/¯

Lewis got a negative grade from PFF. So… overhyped earlier?

That's slightly harsh. Maye had a couple catches against him on the final drive, but they came in the same way most catches against Lewis come: with an angry lemur on your back trying to rake your eyes out.

Most of the time that kind of coverage against Mitch Leidner results in this:

Except Leidner doesn't throw an inch-perfect corner route while on the move off his back foot. Leidner went into Unstoppable Throw God Trevor Siemian mode on a number of second-half throws. I have no problem with the way Lewis played any of his snaps. Sometimes the bear eats you, just not usually a fire-breating gopher.

That first clip about Lewis was a fourth down conversion they reviewed. Catch?

Hell if I know, hell if anyone else knows. It's dumb that a ball that the wide receiver has not clearly secured can hit the ground and still be ruled a catch. Maybe it is by the current rules, because the current rules in college and pro sports are hand-waving nonsense. If the ball hits the ground before you have clearly secured the ball by cradling it as ball carriers do, it should not be a catch.

Heroes?

Holy crap, the defensive line. Peppers.

Maybe not so heroic?

Morgan. The decision to play Ross at buck. Hill. Stribling. The football gods.

What does it mean for Rutgers and beyond?

RJS should be the buck. He's 30 pounds heavier than Ross and has been at the position way longer. He's played well. I have no idea why nobody wants to use Ross at ILB behind a defensive line that must be doubled, but whatever: RJS is the buck.

Let's pretend this never happened for Morgan. He played the entire game with a wallaby in his pants. That's the ticket.

The safeties for next year give me the heebie-jeebies. Big mistakes from Hill and Thomas.

Clark has emerged as the #2 corner. Or #3 depending on how you look at Peppers, but whatever. Stribling was not featured much in this game; he only really came into play on the near-disaster at the end. At least when Clark got hit for a big play it was A TOTAL FLUKE THAT WILL BROOK NO DISCUSSION.

This defensive line though.

Yes, that is a dubstep Seven Nation Army. Deal with it.